










^' >°'^*. 






• :^°^ 



POST OFFICE DEP'T 



IN SEARCij^jgj^^p^Y 



SUMMER BREEZES 



NORTHERN EUROPE. 



Revised Letters to the ^^ Brooklyn Eaglet 



By DEMAS BARNES, 

AUTHOR OF " FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE PACIFIC;'' "NEW YORK 
TO NAPLES," ETC. 



NEW YORK : 
Charles F. Bloom, Publisher, 1^37- William Street. 

1887. 



JAN 11 






> 



g6^ 



By Transfer 

P.O. Dept. 
Mar 23 08 



POST OFFICE DEPL 



!>) 




QCi. g im 






Why I Wrote. 



GEOGRAPHERS used to inform us that 
Denmark was a commercial nation which 
had colonies in the East Indies and owned Ice- 
land; that Norway was inhabited by bold navi- 
gators who discovered Greenland in the ninth 
century, and vWiose principal food was fish; and 
that Sweden was a cold country, frozen in eight 
months of the year between the Baltic Sea on 
the south and the Arctic Ocean on the north : 
not very glowing descriptions, certainly. But 
more recently it has begun to be understood 
that the Scandinavian peoples had done some- 
thing besides sailing dugouts among icebergs, 
gathering eider-down on perilous rocks, eating 
cod liver-oil and sleeping on bear skins. Still, 
as to the climate, the productions of the soil and 
the present condition of those far-away people, 



popular knowledge is exceedingly limited and 
general impressions wholly incorrect. At least 
I found, on personal contact, that my precon- 
ceived ideas concerning them were crude and 
erroneous. I had supposed that the people 
were poor, oppressed, dwarfed by cold, defi- 
cient in education, rude in art, solemn in de- 
meanor, and sadly wanting in cheerfulness and 
sentiment. On the contrary, they are compara- 
tively wealthy; they enjoy liberty ; they are larger 
in stature than the noble Romans or the boast- 
ful Franks, and they are the most generally edu- 
cated people in the world. They are deft as 
artisans, sculptors and painters; fond of music, 
poetry, and dancing; and withal, joyous, buoy- 
ant, affectionate, and apparently happy. More- 
over they have a history in war, science, navi- 
gation, literature, and the fine arts, such as few 
nations can boast of, and such as any nation 
might be proud to claim. 

During the early part of last summer (1886) I 
spent a few weeks in the rural retreats of Eng- 
land. To avoid the usual — and to me familiar 
— routes of travel in southern Europe, and in 
search of summer breezes and much needed rest, 



IAN 11 



I turned my steps northward into Westphalia^ 
Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Subsequently, 
I enlarged my route and continued through Fin- 
land, parts of Russia, Poland, and Germany, and 
entered Switzerland, the Mecca of all travelers, 
from the east through Bavaria. How I left 
Switzerland is immaterial. With most persons 
a first desire is to get into Sv/itzerland, and a 
second is not to leave it at all. I had not the 
slightest intention of writing a line for publica- 
tion — in fact was quite resolved not to do so. 
Finding myself agreeably surprised by the cul- 
ture and advanced position of the people I was 
visiting; surrounded, as I was, by evidences of 
an antiquity which brings Moses far into the 
realm of man's historic achievements, and en- 
vironed by a civilization going back to the stone 
age, I began to reaHze that a relation of some 
of the facts and incidents which had so greatly 
interested me might likewise interest others. 
This idea grew upon me until finally I con- 
cluded, as scanty time would permit, to trans- 
mit, briefly, some of my impressions through 
an American newspaper. Soon, however, I 
regretted my good-natured determination. I 



realized the disadvantages under which I was 
laboring. I was traveling somewhat rapidly, and 
I could not order a dinner anywhere or converse 
in any language but my own, much less acquire 
information in libraries concerning the people 
of whom I was undertaking to write, excepting 
through interpreters. I also realized that the 
incompleteness of my descriptions would, and 
probably do, leave my communications deficient 
in imparting information to others, which was 
my only motive for writing. Furthermore, I 
have no adaptation for descriptive writing. It 
was the condition of the people, contrasts in 
civilzations, differences in governments, and the 
influences of reHgions which v»'ere impressing 
themselves upon my mind; and not many per- 
sons care to have information upon such sub- 
jects. Yet the facts, the visible results of these 
potential influences, were there, — they are every- 
v/here, — and they have not, within my know- 
ledge, been told as I saw them. Do not be 
alarmed. I have not gone into ancient history 
or deemed this a fitting place for didactics. I 
was in search of summer breezes. I trust that 
their genial influences did not permit me to for- 



get that sincerest hospitality is found on humble 
cottage hearths, that many a smiling face peers 
from out of homely hoods, or that birds some- 
times sing on leafless branches, and flowers bloom 
even by the side of martyrs' tombs. 

I therefore continued my communications. I 
am informed that they were cordially received 
by some and dogmatically criticised by others. 
If I am gratified by the evidences of commenda- 
tion, I am delighted with the criticisms. I have 
criticised the Church. I had to. A person who 
undertakes to write of the ignorance, suffering, 
and misery of the great mass of European peo- 
ple, and does not state that the principal cause 
of their misfortunes is the tyranny, oppression, 
and superstitions, nursed and perpetuated by the 
Christian Churches, fails to state the true cause. 
Until a very recent day, every discovery in 
science calculated to elevate the standard of 
thought, and every labor-saving invention cal- 
culated to hft mankind into a higher state of 
liberty, was as vehemently opposed by the vari- 
ous Churches, as those now endeavoring to up- 
root degrading dogmas are opposed by their 
representatives of the present day. I have not 



yet seen the person who has discovered the art 
of making an omelet without breaking an egg. 
It is to be regretted that so many otherwise 
good men have held, and still hold, that absurd 
religious dogmas are of more importance than 
intelligent scientific truth. But they do. I do 
not. Evidently there are others v»^ho are of my 
opinion, judging from the number of requests 
received for copies of my Europea.n correspond- 
ence. Several friends, whose opinions ought to 
have weight with me, insist that I shall collate 
and republish my recent letters. Following the 
bad advice of good friends has caused, and I 
presume always will cause, much trouble in this 
paradoxical world. This is my present posi- 
tion. I have the inclination, but I have not 
the time, properly to revise and edit a mass of 
hurriedly written and dictated communications 
of which I am without notes. There is, how- 
ever, another and controlling reason why these 
comments should be republished. Whole para- 
graphs of my manuscripts were omitted, the com- 
positors' mistakes were not corrected, and some 
of the proofs appear not to have been read or 
corrected by anyone in the ncAvspaper office 



where they were printed. It is, therefore, of 
some Httle importance to me, that what I in- 
tended to say shall be properly printed. For 
the reasons stated, and with a hope that a few 
rays of sunlight may appear to illumine some 
dark places, and that I may convey, however 
inadequately, a partial idea of the burdens less 
favored people than ourselves are compelled to 
carry, I present the results of my search for 
summer breezes in northern Europe. 

Demas Barnes. 
Brooklyn, January i, 1887. 





I. 



SCAKDIKAVIA, 



Denmark — Norway — Sweden — Hospitality of the 
People — A Glance into Germany — Trip up the 
Cattegat — Productions — Plenty of Rock and 
What Became of the Soil — Glacial Action — 
Physical Aspects. 

FOR the fourth time I landed upon a Liver- 
pool dock. It was in June — the month of 
roses. England, cultivated like a vast garden in 
the midst of a park, and always beautiful, was 
then more beautiful than ever. It was also in 
the height of the excitement attendant upon the 
discussion of the Irish question. Of course I 
encountered Gladstone, Parnell, Churchill, and 
other disputants then attracting the attention of 
the world. I took the invigorating baths at 
Buxton, strolled in the pleasure grounds ot 



Chatsworth, gathered flowers in aesthetic Leam- 
ington, wandered among the ruins of Kenil- 
worth, looked in upon classic Oxford, and was 
in no hurry to get into the great metropolis, 
although the height of the London season is 
during hot weather. I was in search of summer 
breezes, and these I expected to find in north- 
ern Europe. Without much delay I pursued my 
journey through Brussels, Cologne, and Dussel- 
dorf. Where else I a,m to go I cannot yet say. 
England, Belgium, and France have been already 
made as familiar to most Americans as are dis- 
tant sections of their own country. I shall en- 
deavor to avoid speaking of things famihar, in- 
tending only to touch briefly upon things com- 
paratively new. Hence my silence in regard to 
incidents preceding this time. 

I v/ent to Denmark. Its well cultivated land, 
great herds of fine cattle, snug cottages, and 
clean cities were to me a poem. I visited Nor- 
way. Its fir-covered hills, blooming valleys, and 
hospitable people delighted me. I am in Sv/e- 
den. I am enraptured. I am writing this letter 
in Stockholm on a balcony by daylight, at ten 
o'clock, evening. The breezes here are blowing, 



12 



but the sun, too, is shining, and the sweetest 
sentiments of the human heart seem to well 
forth from humble cottages and stately mansions 
alike, causing a stranger to feel himself sur- 
rounded by a warmth of friendship and hospi- 
tality which stirs his best emotions, and is. I 
hope, productive of lasting good. 

Scandinavia, composed of Denmark, Norway, 
and Sweden, has sent to America an enormous 
emigration. Viewing the people who have re- 
mained at home, one naturally asks himself why 
any emigrate. Not that I fail to understand the 
disadvantages of long winters and their attend- 
ant short days, of a barren soil and a crowded 
population, or to appreciate the advantages of 
cheap land, light taxation and republican institu- 
tions, but that the seeming condition of the peo- 
ple precludes the idea of penury or want. The 
answer to my suggestion lies far beneath the sur- 
face. We here see nearly as many evidences of 
comfort and prosperity, even of luxury, as we do 
at home, and we certainly see fewer barefoot 
children and public mendicants than v/e would 
encounter anywhere in the United States. Good 
houses, ornate furniture, silver-plate, well dressed 



13 



people, fine roads, modern implements, and well- 
cared-for domestic animals, are the rule. There 
are proportionately a larger number of electric 
lights in Copenhagen, Christiania, and Stock- 
holm than there are in Paris. There are more 
flowers in a few dozen front yards anywhere in 
these countries, fifteen hundred miles north of 
New York, than can be found in the entire 
counties which contain the thrifty villages of 
Saratoga and Richfield Springs. That plants 
grow and flowers bloom in the long daylight 
of northern climates is not at ail strange. It is 
the taste, the education and refinement, which 
leads to such general cultivation of them, that 
is strange and agreeably surprising. 

Before, however, speaking further of my more 
northern experiences, I must partially retrace my 
steps and say a few words respecting Germany. 

Since the termination of the financial depres- 
sion succeeding the Franco- Prussian war, Ger- 
many has been developing with tremiCndous 
strides. Hamburg is a city of m.agnificent 
houses, a large commerce, and about 400,000 
remarkably enterprising and prosperous people. 
They are now razing the old buildings upon over 



14 



a hundred acres of land near the river, extend- 
mg and deepening the canals, and erecting on the 
vacant site splendid eight-story warehouses. 
Hamburg is seventy miles from the North Sea, 
on the river Elbe, which is kept open during all 
seasons of the year. Now, to accommodate 
its rapidly increasing commerce, the govern- 
ment is constructing a ship canal sixty miles east 
to Lubec, on the Baltic. I think I can safely 
say that the most enchantingly located urban 
residences I have ever seen are those surround- 
ing a lake v/hich juts into Hamburg from the 
north. Hamburg is the home of our beautiful 
swans. It was here where lived a lady who be- 
queathed to that city a fund sufficient to rear 
and perpetually sustain three hundred swans. 
The increase over three hundred was to be given 
to other cities. The trust has been faithfully and 
generously administered. It was from Hamburg 
that New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and 
other American cities obtained the graceful birds 
which swim in the waters of their parks. I was 
informed that there were in the harbor of Ham- 
burg over three hundred sailing vessels and 
steamships. Alas ! the American flag did not fly 
from a mast upon one of them. 



15 



Since I was in Berlin, nine years ago, that 
city has doubled its population. It is now larger 
than New York. With her more than a million 
and a half people, Berlin is crowding Paris in 
many ways. Numerous old buildings have been 
cleared away, and modern structures with ele- 
vators and other improvements erected in their 
places. The suburbs are extending. Horse-car 
tramways intersect and environ the city, and 
an elevated intramural railroad as substantially 
built of stone and brick as an aqueduct across 
the Erie canal, now passes eight miles through 
the most populous parts of the city. Berlin's 
libraries, picture galleries and works of art, rival 
the British Museum, the Luxembourg, and the 
Louvre. Similar progress may be seen anywhere 
throughout the German Empire, from the Baltic 
on the north to the Swiss Lakes on the south. 

The northern peninsula of Denmark — Jutland 
— is largely composed of alluvial soil washed 
down from Sweden. Like Holland, a portion of 
its land has been reclaimed by diking and pump- 
ing out the sea water. Its principal produc- 
tions are wheat, rye, barley, and potatoes, and 
large herds of excellent cattle. The island of 
Zealand, to the east, upon which is located 



i6 



Copenhagen, is rolling dry land, every foot of 
which is highly cultivated. The English language / 
is taught in the public schools; letters are deliv- 
ered and called for daily at every house, and 
nowhere, during my travels in Scandinavia, have 
I been in a hotel, store, depot, or other place, 
in vv'hich I could not converse with the attend- 
ants in my own tongue. Copenhagen is a thrifty 
city of over 200,000 inhabitants. It has an im- 
mense commerce, large manufactories, a park, 
zoological and botanical gardens, and the most 
complete museum of Scandinavian antiquities 
anywhere to be found. It was from this mu- 
seum that Sir John Lubbock procured his en- 
gravings of the tombs, skeletons, dresses, and 
utensils pertaining to prehistoric man. The city 
is situated upon the Cattegat, and from its docks 
the shores of Sweden can be seen a dozen miles 
to the eastward. Twenty-five miles further north 
the two countries are separated by a strait only 
three miles wide, under which it is now in con- 
templation to construct a tunnel. I have no 
doubt that this undertaking will soon be ac- 
compHshed. 

One of the most surprising features of these 



17 



northern countries is the slight change between 
our own and their summer temperature. While 
skirting the coast of Sweden in latitudes from eight 
to twelve hundred miles north of New York, we 
experienced one of the warmest days of the sum- 
mer, enabling us to sit under awnings and take 
our coffee upon the steamer's deck. 

The influence of the gulf-stream upon these 
northern coasts has a very decided agency in 
tempering the climate. Bordering some of the 
streets in Copenhagen, I saw the Enghsh walnut- 
tree (Madeira-nut tree) in fair bearing. We can- 
not succeed with this tree north of Carolina. 
Telegraph wires, telephones, and electric lights 
are as much in use here as they are with us. 
Out-of-door amusements are far more general. 

Stockholm is intersected by several arms of 
the sea, and parts of the city stand upon islands. 
Its bridges are handsome structures, and the waters 
are at all times lively with rapidly moving steam- 
boats. To me, Stockholm is a far more attrac- 
tive city than Venice. As to comfort and con- 
venience in moving about, there is no compari- 
son between them. In Venice the highways are 
narrow canals; the means of locomotion, gondo- 



i8 



las; and the houses are damp and unwholesome. 
In Stockholm the streets are broad and clean, 
tramways and carriages are plentiful, and the air 
is invigorating and healthy. At night, with its 
many lights reflected in the water, and made 
ga.y with moving crowds, plying boats, and 
music from numerous gardens, it presents a 
beautiful and enlivening scene. 

A sail up the coast of Sweden and, through 
the narrow channel leading to Christiania, is 
doubtless one of the prettiest trips in the world. 
Islands are numerous, rocks abundant, and fish- 
ermen's huts frequent, sometimes making pic- 
turesque villages. The entrance to the harbor 
of Gottenburg winds betv/een promontories, 
rocks, light-houses, villas, and distant hills ; and 
once seen, will be always remembered as present- 
ing a view of weird and transcendent beauty. 

By turning to the map it will be seen why Nor- 
way and Sweden must be treated as one coun- 
try. The northern portions of the territory are 
mountainous and rocky, and only the narrow val- 
leys are tillable. There is but little land in Nor- 
way, but there is a great deal of rock. From 
Christiania east to Stockholm, on the Gulf of 



Bothnia, is about two hundred miles. It is about 
three hundred miles to the southern end of the 
peninsula on the Baltic. The extreme elevation 
of this table-land is only three hundred feet. It 
is crossed from sea to sea by a ship-canal passing 
through Lakes Wetter and Wener. For a few 
miles the canal follows the gorge below the 
Trollhatta Cascades, the waters of which, by 
several plunges, leap one hundred and eight feet. 
These are said to be the grandest falls in Europe. 
They correspond with the cascades at Trenton 
in the State of New York, and, in my judgment, 
are inferior to them in grandeur. 

The lower peninsula, of which I am speaking, 
and the best part of Sweden, is composed of 
much rock, a larger proportion of very poor soil, 
and a Htde that m.ay be called fair land. Almost 
everywhere, by reason of the rocks, the farm-lots 
are small, yet the farming is excellent, and where 
space permits one will see the American plow, 
horse-rake, and other modern labor-saving im- 
plements. As yet, I have not observed one of 
these implements in Belgium or France, although 
the level lands there invite their use. 

The leagues upon leagues of verdureless rocks, 



20 



and millions upon millions of huge boulders 
which are here everywhere encountered, are the 
primeval curse of the Scandinavian people. They 
present indisputable evidences of long ages of 
eroding glacial ice. The soil was, long ago, trans- 
ported further south, and now forms much of the 
territory of the Netherlands. Geologists inform 
us that on several occasions the earth, north 
and south of about 40 degrees, has been cov- 
ered by seas of ice. The ice period commenc- 
ing about 2,600,000 years ago continued with 
shght modifications for about 100,000 years. 
The period beginning 2,000,000 b. c. continued 
for 300,000 years. The one beginning 1,300,- 
000 B. c. was of about the same duration, but 
from 950,000 B. c. to 100,000 years ago, during 
most of the Miocene period, those parts of the 
earth, the greater portion of the time, have been 
mantled with a sea of ice. The ice extended 
down into France on the European continent, 
and to the Tennessee mountains upon the 
American continent. 

As for many hundred thousand years this 
great bank of frozen snow and water gradually 
pressed forward, conveying in its grip at the bot- 



21 



torn soil and rocks and depositing them else- 
where, it wholly changed the topography of 
many parts of the earth's surface. The chro- 
nology of geological events thus written on the 
rocks of Norway and Sweden forms a history of 
the earth's antiquity of which inspired writers had 
no knowledge. I am quite confident that had the 
people of these countries proceeded upon the 
theory adopted by Napoleon, when he appro- 
propriated the provinces of the lower Rhine be- 
cause they had been formed from the soil of 
countries owing allegiance to France, they could 
have established a good claim to most of the 
wheat-fields and cabbage-gardens of Jutland, 
Holland, and Belgium. 



POST OFFICE DEPT. 

LIBH APxY. 



jA 



II. 
SCAIS^DINAVIA. 



Government — Amusements — An Ancient Ship of 
the Vikings — Discovery of Greenland — Prehis- 
toric Man — The Stone Age — The Bronze Age 
— Antiquity of the Earth. 

Tl 7 HAT'S in a name? A rose by any other 
VV name would smell as sweet. Denmark 
has its king, Norway and Sweden have their 
king, and many little principaHties in Europe, 
of only a few hundred thousand population, 
have their kings. We denominate similar offi- 
cials governors. Elections in Norway and Swe- 
den are untrammeled. Any male citizen, twenty- 
five years old, who possesses property of the 
value of $150, or who has been a tenant upon* 
the same property for five years, is entitled to a 
vote. These humane people have abolished the 



23 

barbarous system of capital punishment, to which 
we still cling. 

Although nominally existing under limited 
monarchies, the authority exercised by the bear- 
ers of inherited titles in Scandinavia has been 
little by little so abridged that almost all real po- 
Utical power rests in the people. The prefix of 
Prince or Duke confers but little honor, and 
even kings themselves have to count the cost 
of disregarding a sovereign power behind the 
throne. The guide who conducted us through 
the royal residence at Christiania vv^as dressed 
more like a Pennsylvania farmer than an usher 
of a king's guests. The equipages of the nobil- 
ity are not more conspicuous than are those of 
opulent merchants and bankers seen every day 
in the streets of American cities. After looking 
through long rooms in the Copenhagen gallery, 
the walls of which v/ere hung with portraits of 
kings and queens adorned with velvet, lace, and 
jewels, and other badges of royal distinction, 
the guide remarked to us: "This is the por- 
trait of Denmark's first real man king." He 
pointed to the picture of King Christian VIII., 
who ascended the throne in 1839. The sitter 



24 



was represented in plain citizen's dress, like an 
American president. At Stockholm a principal 
out-of-door concert and beer-garden is within 
500 feet, and directly in front, of the king's 
palace, from which place royalty may listen to 
popular airs until midnight almost every evening 
in the year. Evidently, these people are repub- 
lican at heart, and with another generation of 
men receiving the advantages of their high 
standard of education, they may become republi- 
can in fact. 

A very interesting development in the geology 
of the Scandinavian peninsula is now taking place. 
The northern portion is being raised at the rate 
of about four feet in a century, and since historic 
reckoning has been elevated several hundred feet. 

In 1883 there came to view in one of the Nor- 
wegian fjords what proved to be a ship of the 
early Vikings. This ship, with its masts and furni- 
ture, was carefully exhumed, found to be in a good 
state of preservation, and removed to Christiania, 
where now it may be seen. Archaeologists 
agree in pronouncing it a vessel of the eighth 
or ninth century, and the oldest specimen of 
marine architecture now known to be in exist- 



25 

ence. It is ninety-six feet long, about twenty 
feet beam, v/ith two decks and two masts. It 
had thirty double sets of oars, some of v/hich are 
yet preserved, and a rudder on one side of the 
stem instead of at the end of the keel. Possibly 
this may have been the same ship in which the 
early navigators visited America in the ninth and 
tenth centuries. 

But how did those people know how to sail to 
and fro across a boisterous ocean at that time ? 
We have no knoAvledge of the mariners' com- 
pass prior to the eleventh century, and it is be- 
lieved to have been discovered by the Arabs — 
more likely the Chinese — about that time. That 
the Norwegians did visit Greenland in 876, and 
during the next century established colonies 
there, is well authenticated. The records of 
seventeen successive bishoprics are preserved in 
the Christiania library, and the ruins of one 
hundred Norwegian villages may yet be seen on 
the western coast of Greenland. There the his- 
tory ends. Whether the people w^ere extermin- 
ated by the natives, frozen to death by change 
of climate, starved, or their ships of supply lost 
on the way by reason of along obscuration of the 



26 



stars — then their only guide — we do not know. 
We do know that those people were abreast of 
the most learned nations of the earth in astron- 
omy and other sciences. Their records concern- 
ing prehistoric man are the most complete of 
any in the world. In the museums of Stock- 
holm, Christiania, and Copenhagen, man's pro- 
gress through the stone, the bronze, and the iron 
ages may be traced with unerring distinctness. 
When one holds in one's hands the stone-chisel, 
the bone-saw, the flint-drill, and the bronze-ham- 
mer with which the pioneers of our race pursued 
their almost hopeless career of development, one 
can partially realize the immensely long periods 
through which they toiled to get up to the cam- 
bric needle and the chronometer watch. 

It is nearly within our own generation — it is 
wholly within this and the preceding generation 
— that man has known anything concerning the 
formation and age of the earth upon which he 
lives. These are rather too important subjects 
of which to be in ignorance. I have always 
been anxious to get at the facts concerning them. 
A discussion of the facts, or rather an attempt 
to discuss them, has compelled many a person 




27 

to lay his neck upon the block, or stand upon 
the burning pile, and has caused more human 
blood to flow than there is water in the Croton 
river. I well remember that when I was but a 
lad I came near losing my situation with a good- 
hearted, but fearfully orthodox employer, because 
I chose to read a book — by whom written no 
one knew— which gave a little information on 
the subject. My superior said that the earth 
was made just 5880 years ago. He also said 
that he knew all about it; that it was so stated 
in the Bible, and that the Bible was an inspired 
book and could not be mistaken. He further 
stated — as many others have stated — that the 
world was created out of nothing, and that there 
was a man named Adam who was just as old as 
the earth. This wise and good man did not fail 
to state that to read the Vestiges of Creation was a 
great sin, and that it could not be permitted by any 
Christian employer. But he changed his mind 
on the permission part ; for I read the book and 
remained in his employ just the same — except- 
ing the sin of getting information. Yes, I was 
brought up on inspired history and have a proper 
respect for its advocates. But the inspired writ- 



28 



ers made a great many mistakes, some of them 
in regard to very important matters. They made 
a mistake as to the creation of the earth. They 
were mistaken as to when it was formed. They 
were mistaken as to the creation of man, and 
they were mistaken as to the creation of these 
Scandinavian rocks; the formation of Holland 
out of Swedish soil, and the formation of Long 
Island, where my home is. These inspired mis- 
takes have cost me a great deal of perplexity. I 
am endeavoring to teach my children the history 
of their earth from authorities that do not make 
mistakes. Some of my authority I find here in 
Sweden. It is written on the rocks — not on a 
mountain within a cloud where no one could 
see — but plainly written in bold stratifications 
which have been standing for thousands, yes, 
for millions of years, and may now be seen of all 
men. I find it in the remains of animals which 
were extinct species millions of years before the 
date assigned for Adam's creation. I find it 
upon the summits of the Alps and the Sierras. I 
find it in the chalk clifis of England, and the 
coral reefs of Florida. I find it in the eighty- 
one overlying coal strata of Nova Scotia, and 



29 

the submergence and formation of continents. 
I find it in the laws of gravitation and of Hght, 
and I find it in the indestructibility of matter 
and the incalculable distance of the stars, the 
light of some of which, traveling at the rate of 
191,500 miles in a second of time, has but just 
touched our earth. 

This is the verdict of scientific men without 
an exception. There is no longer any question 
concerning the formation of this earth. It never 
was created. It was formed, out of the atoms of 
other dissolving celestial bodies ; as when it, too, 
shall dissolve, the material of which it is com- 
posed, with material frorri other bodies, will form 
still other planets. It assumed its present globu- 
lar form millions upon millions of years ago. It 
was at first a pestilential morass, upon which 
even cold-blooded animals could not exist until 
after interminable ages, when carboniferous vege- 
tation and insect zoophites had converted its 
deadly carbonic acid gas into coal and carbonate 
of lime, seen in coral reefs and Hme-stone rocks. 
We may now enumerate 2,000,000 species of 
living animal life. But these are insignificant 
compared with the number of species which 



30 

were extinct before man made his appearance 
upon the earth. These facts are worth knowing. 
A , They are what none of the beheved-to-be-inspired 
C X persons who wrote the Bible knew anything 
\about. After stumbUng along in darkness for 
this long time, waiting for inspired writers to 
teach us something, we find that the only in- 
formation we possess that is worth anything, 
and the only inventions assisting man in his hard 
struggle for existence against hunger, cold, and 
animal ferocity, have emanated from the brains 
of skeptical inquirers. The rest, in regard to 
the earth being clothed with verdure before there 
was solar light ; the drowning of the world by 
a great flood and the preserving of 1,000,000 
pairs of animals — the hippopotami from Africa, 
the sloth from America, and the companionable 
polar bear from the Arctic regions, in an ark 
for eleven months and sixteen days; Joshua 
making the sun stand still; Elijah sailing to 
an unlocated heaven through air in which he 
would have frozen as stiff as a poker at a height 
of five miles; sprinkling ram's blood on the 
tent-poles of Israel, and consecrating David for 
having killed Uriah that he might have one 



31 

more wife;— well, the less of such legends we 
have taught us as facts, the better. 

For one, I believe it to be the duty of each 
of us to teach facts. Facts — immutable, unvary- 
ing laws — cannot be changed. If our great 
army of ministers dared speak what they well 
know are the facts pertaining to these subjects, 
what an enlargement of the conceptions of man 
would follow ! Then, at least, the rising genera- 
tion would be spared the humiliation of accept- 
ing absurd and debasing theories contradicted by 
reason. There is no excuse for longer teaching 
— not merely blind faith in fanciful legends — 
but absolute falsehoods. I doubt if there is in*^^ 
our country one intelligent university graduate 
who is not as familiar with Croll's 4,000,000 
year tables, as he is with this year's almanac. 
He knows, or ought to know, if he essays to be 
a teacher of anything, that the earth's varying 
conditions as to heat and cold are governed by 
astronomical causes. He also knows, or ought 
to know, that tables are at his command which 
as accurately state the eccentricities ot the earth's 
obliquity, past and future, causing the immense 
periods of heat which have permitted the car- 



32 

boniferous fern and the tropical banana to flour- 
ish in Scandinavia and in Greenland, and its 
alternating periods of low temperature which 
caused England and Ohio to be covered with 
mantles of ice, as do the almanacs inform us of 
past and future eclipses of the sun. 





'IFFlCE 


i' 




i 


t\\j y * A ^i. 


Ja 




JL 


I B R A 


1=? 


Y. 



rOST OFFICE OEPT. 
LIBRARY. 



III. 



Promoters of Science— The Most Generally Edu- 
cated People in the World— Literature and Art 
—Jenny Lind — Ole Bull — Miss Nilsson and 
Ericsson. 

NORWAY, Sweden, and Denmark were in 
the vanguard of inquirers after facts. 
Their philosophers were the first to dispute the 
cherished doctrine that ignorance is the best 
state for man. The effects are everywhere visi- 
ble in the condition of their people. Unfavor- 
ably situated as they are, 93 per cent of their 
children of proper age are attendants upon 
schools. It was from these countries that Prus- 
sia first borrowed her admirable system of com- 
pulsory education, which since has been imper- 
fectly copied by England and by some of the 



34 

American States. How enslaved man finally- 
baffled his oppressors and struggled up and 
through the dense ignorance and degrading 
superstition, which so long had been his lot, is 
the world's greatest mystery. Sacred be the 
memory of Copernicus. For thirty-six years he 
suffered persecutions waiting for a time when 
he might project facts which, seized by the plan- 
ets, should illuminate the heavens, so that finally 
all mankind could read the text of equal rights 
and the privilege to think. 

The United Scandinavian Kingdom supports 
a standing army of about 100,000 men. It has 
a heavy debt, principally the legacy of its fight- 
ing days. The national taxes are heavy, and 
the local taxes for making roads and bridges 
over the rocky earth and mountain torrents must 
be large. The problem then is : with long and 
rigorous winters and short days, a churlish soil 
and heavy taxation, how is it that these peoples 
have for long ages sustained the first character 
as navigators, agriculturists, merchants, schol- 
ars, warriors, and statesmen? In navigation 
they planted colonies in Greenland, North Amer- 
ica, in the tenth century; in war they have at 



35 

times successfully combated with England, Prus- 
sia, and Germany; in literature they had "Jack, 
the Giant Killer," in the eighth century; Will- 
helm Tell shooting the apple from his son's head, 
in the ninth century, and Cinderella and the slip- 
per a little later. Norway has given to the 
world Nordenskjold, the scientific Arctic ex- 
plorer; Thorwaldsen, the sculptor; Ole Bull, 
the musician, and other renowned practical and 
scientific men. To Sweden v/e are indebted 
for the sweet voices of Jenny Lind and Miss 
Nilsson, for Swedenborg's philosophy and for a 
system of submerged gunboats invented by 
Ericsson, who is now living among us. At the 
critical moment, during the American Civil War, 
Ericsson's gunboat, the Monitor, sank the rebel 
ram Merrimac in Norfolk harbor, and doubtless 
saved New York from destruction. As to Den- 
mark, all Europe seems to rely upon her for new 
blood to give vitality to its tottering thrones. 
Alexandra, the present king's eldest daughter, is 
Princess of Wales, and will be, if she lives. Queen 
of England; Dagmar, the second daughter, is 
Empress of Russia; and his son, George, is King 
of Greece. Bulgaria lately sent to Denmark for 



36 

the remaining royal son, Waldemar, to take the 
place of its recently deposed ruler. 

These people are beyond England in the sci- 
ence of liberal government. They have turned 
their backs upon degrading titles, and ignored 
the divine right of kings. They have a sound 
cun-ency ; they are far ahead, in agricultural and 
mechanical arts, of Italy and Spain, with their 
bountiful soil, genial climate, and perennial 
harvests, and they have a larger commerce in 
their own vessels than we in the United States 
can boast of. In fact, Norway has a larger 
vessel tonnage in proportion to its population 
than any country in the world. I say that I am 
surprised at the prosperity, comfort, and progress 
of these wonderful people. I am thankful, as 
every American should be thankful, that so many 
of them are adding their intellectual fertility and 
physical productiveness to the element of pro- 
gress in America. 




K. 



SEP 8 loJj 



IV. 



Ice, Granite, and Polar Bears — Barren Soil but 
Cultivated People — Effects of Freedom and Re- 
ligions — A Night on the Bothnia — Rooming 
with a Pickpocket — A Friend of Haeckel. 

NORTHEAST from Stockholm, across the 
Gulf of Bothnia, lies a country in location 
comparable with Greenland, Labrador, and Alas- 
ka, and which one might suppose produced only- 
ice, granite, and polar bears. It bears, however, 
the impress of the Scandinavian race, and I 
thought I would for myself see how its inhabitants 
have withstood Arctic winters, English whisky, 
and modern guns. 

If the reader will look upon the map and 
locate Abo, Tevastehus, and Viborg, between the 



38 

sixtieth and sixty-second degrees north, he will 
the more readily understand the country of which 
I am writing. The city of Abo, about five miles 
from the sea, contains a population of over 20,- 
000 souls. It has good hotels, stores, manufac- 
turing establishments, schools, parks, and foun- 
tains; a botanical garden, a theatre, telegraph 
lines, a daily newspaper, and a fine railroad 
depot. On either side of the river leading to the 
sea are numerous fine private residences having 
their docks, yachts, and bath houses, and sur- 
rounded by lawns and flowers, rivaling Long 
Branch and surpassing the approaches to the 
American metropolis. A New Yorker, accus- 
tomed to viewing with placid satisfaction the 
beauties of the shores of his city's harbor, and 
visiting Finland with the expectation of finding 
a scene of almost Arctic sterility and hyperborean 
frosts, soon realizes his mistake. 

Helsingfors, the Capital of Finland, contains 
about 50,000 population, and is the principal 
distributing city of the country. It has many 
magnificent five-story stores, two theatres, a mil- 
itary academy, a great university, a telegraph 
school, an astronomical observatory, electric 



39 

lights, two daily newspapers, an immense sugar 
refinery, one of the best hotels in Europe, and 
better collections of animals and exotic plants 
than are possessed by the combined cities of 
New York, Boston, and Chicago. 

The principal productions of Finland are tim- 
ber, marble, rye, barley, oats, and potatoes. The 
soil is poor, and apparently it bakes and dries 
out. The average annual rainfall is but twenty 
inches, or only about one-half that of New York. 
Yet the farming is good, and the country sup- 
ports over 500 miles of railroad, and has a large 
foreign-carrying trade. But not in its harbor, nor 
in those of Stockholm, Christiania, Gottenborg, 
Copenhagen, Cronstadt, or anywhere else I have 
been, were my eyes gladdened by a sight of the 
flag to which I am supposed to look for protec- 
tion. 

I have frequently asked myself how it is pos- 
sible for people like those of Finland, contend- 
ing against soil, climate, and short days, hemmed 
in by ice during six months of the year, and pay- 
ing taxes to a tyrannical government, to present 
so many evidences of superiority over the more 
favored peoples of Spain, France, and Italy. 



40 



The answer is, I think, to be found in the effects 
of its various rehgions. A single rehgion means 
devotion without knowledge. It means squan- 
dered wealth and willing poverty, and it means 
tyranny on the part of rulers, with sycophancy, 
deceit, and moral incapacity among the people. 
It is not a question of sect, but of human nature 
and the action of natural laws. No single relig- 
ion ever did or ever can properly develop and 
control a people. Look at Abyssinia, Italy, and 
Turkey, probably the most backv/ard and super- 
stitious of existing civilized nations. The first is 
Protestant, the second Catkolic, and the third 
Mohammedan. In those countries, and in all 
countries, until recently, doubters as to the su- 
pernatural and inquirers into natural laws were 
not wanted. Men like Roger Bacon, Descartes, 
Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Bruno, and 
Columbus, were deemed guilty of defying God, 
and were forced into prisons or to torture or 
death. Yet to these men, and to others like 
them, the world is indebted beyond the power 
of mind to express. But for the labors of some 
of them, the rotundity of the earth might still be 
in doubt; we might yet suppose that the sun 



41 



runs around the earth, and probably America 
would not yet be known to European peoples. 

Finland supports 2,000,000 inhabitants and 
at least thirty religions, among which the Luth- 
eran sect strongly predominates. The Lutheran 
Church, closely guarded as it is by other sects, 
is, I think, the most potential moral force in 
Europe. [ It permits no child to partake of its 
communion until he or she can read and discuss 
doctrines and creeds. It looks upon most mere 
dogmas as mythological legends, and the wor- 
ship of relics as degrading. It relies wholly 
upon education and knowledge as the monitors 
for action. Moral homes and good citizenship 
are, I understand, the general rule. Shrines, 
wooden plows, barefooted children and the out- 
stretched hand of supplication are seldom seen, 
while well -clad children, flower -embowered 
homes, school-houses, electric telegraphs, and 
labor-saving implements everywhere prevail. 

Although subjects of Russia, the Finns en- 
forced terms from their conquerors not inconsist- 
ent with their traditional freedom and national 
self-respect. They pay tribute, but they are not 
serfs. They have a national parliament and en- 



42 



act their own laws. They levy and collect their 
own taxes, have a navy, a mint, and a staple cur- 
rency. When the Czar comes among them., it is 
as Grand Duke only — nothing more. They even 
have custom-houses between their frontiers and 
Russia. Finland, too, in my judgment, is get- 
ting ready to join the great army of nations 
marching on to the goal of republican govern- 
ment. 

We left Stockholm to cross the Bothnia to Abo, 
in Finland, at midnight. The boat was crowded 
with passengers. Upon retiring, I found myself 
in a state-room with a stranger, who, upon ex- 
change of salutations, I observed was a German, 
who spoke the English language. No sleep 
for me to-night, thought I. Entering into con- 
versation in the darkness to ascertain whether I 
was housed with a sweet Monk or a vile pick- 
pocket, we touched upon various subjects, and I 
soon began to feel that my watch was safe. My 
companion was not a pickpocket. What was 
he ? Yankee like, I endeavored to find out. He 
was a gentleman, and more than an ordinary 
gentleman. A curiosity to learn something more 
of him, his residence, and whether he was a doc- 



43 

tor, lawyer, or statesman, induced me to make 
inquiries in those directions, wiiereupon he in- 
formed me that his home was in Jena. Jena, 
not far from Leipsic, was, I hoped, to be taken 
in on my return trip. I said: " Although Jena 
is a place of literary distinction, it is a small city, 
and possibly you may inform me somewhat in 
regard to Haeckel, the author of the ' History 
of Creation,' a very popular book in my coun- 
try?" Immediately my friend burst out in 
enthusiastic language, saying: "Do you read 
Haeckel's books? Do you know Haeckel? He 
is such a sweet man, such a lovable man, such 
a learned man. You must go to Jena. Mr. 
Haeckel will be very glad to see you. He will 
be dehghted to meet a friend from America. I 
shall inform Mr. Haeckel that I have met you. 
You must surely come to Jena. I shall hope to 
see you there." The pickpocket idea had passed 
out of my mind. My friend had left his sofa 
opposite mine, and was holding my hand. Both 
of us were finally sitting up discoursing of Haec- 
kel. I had learned where my compa.nion was 
from; I had not yet learned who he was. But 
we had a mutual friend. We were approaching 



44 

friendship. Thus came a reward for venturing 
to room with a stranger — a possible pickpocket. 
It was after two o'clock. A rap was heard upon 
our door, and an angry voice outside, as nearly 
as I could make out, said : " Will you not stop 
your talking ? Do you not know that your cease- 
less gabble in a foreign language is disturbing all 
the passengers in the adjoining rooms?" We 
begged pardon. We were squelched. We again 
lay down, not to talk, but to dream, of Haeckel. 
The next day we dined together on shore. My 
companion presented me with his card. He was 
Professor of Philology in the great University of 
Jena. The president of that University is Emst 
Haeckel. 

Perhaps some of you may ask who Haeckel is, 
for he is not yet an old man. I will answer this 
question v/ith the understanding that you do not 
now ask another; for I know that when I have 
repHed, you will have, not one, but several ques- 
tions ready. Two gentlemen were seated upon 
the same sofa in a railroad carriage. One, whom 
I will call Mr. Jenks, was a Yankee. The other, 
whom I will call Mr. Jenkins, had but one arm. 
The two entered into conversation. Jenks took 



45 

the pump-handle and asked the usual questions 
of, where are you going? where do you live? 
do you happen to know John Smith? what do 
you do? general, minister, doctor? and so on. 
Jenkins replied with dignified but evasive cour- 
tesy. This was not satisfactory to Jenks. Jenks 
wanted to have a history of the great and san- 
guinary battle in which he was sure Jenkins had 
lost that arm. Again Jenks said : " I notice that 
you have but one arm; how did you lose the 
other one ?" " You seem to be a Httle inquisi- 
tive," replied Mr. Jenkins, " but I will answer that 
question if you will promise not to ask me any 
other." The promise was readily given. " My 
arm was bitten off," said Mr. Jenkins. " What 
bit it off?" immediately was asked by Jenks. 

Ernst Haeckel is the man who, to the satis- 
faction of the scientific world, has authoritatively 
located the garden of Eden; that is, the country 
where the animal, man, was developed into a rea- 
soning human being. He is the man who has 
said that after the animal man was otherwise 
physically perfect, it probably required 500,000 
years to develop the glottis, by which he could 
speak, communicate ideas, and begin a course 



■5**^ 



46 



of cumulative progress. He is the man to whom 
Darwin wrote: "Had you published your opin- 
ions on creation three years earlier, the world 
would have been spared my more feeble presen- 
tation of the subject." Ernst Haeckel is doubt- 
less the most profound scientific man now living. 



1 ,1,1 ■ ilH ii wi iii '■ "" 



V. 

Russia. 



Its Isolation and Difficult Language — Oriental 
Splendor and Squalid Poverty — Immense 
Fields of Wheat and Wooden Plows— Some 
of the Hardships of the People — Exiles on 
their Way to Siberia. 

RUSSIA is a sphinx. She may not inaptly be 
compared to a great beehive, with walls so 
thick that to outsiders a sound is seldom audible, 
while within is an intensely active population 
whose occupation is not merely to gather pollen 
from Cossack roses on their own vast plains, but 
whose pinions are capable of flying from the 
Black Sea on the south to the Arctic Ocean on 
the north, and from the German Empire in the 
west of Europe to Behring's Straits at the Eastern 
extremity of Asia. Neither is the imperial stomach 



48 



gorged by swallowing small provinces on her own 
borders, but she gulps down, apparently without 
discomfort, whole nations like Poland, Turkistan, 
and Finland; and now, judging from appear- 
ances, she is about to estabhsh herself on the 
Persian Gulf. A cordon of sentinels guard her 
frontier at every point, and censors control the 
press, inspect telegrams, and overhaul the mails. 
The gauge of railroad tracks is broken at the 
frontier towns, so that no car or its commodities 
can enter or leave the territory without scrutiny. 
We know very little concerning the domestic 
and internal affairs of Russia. Her language is 
a bar to intercourse. The Russian alphabet is 
composed of thirty-six characters, partly Greek, 
partly Roman, and partly composite. Seeing my 
own name written in Russian I could not read it. 
The multiplied vowels and peculiar consonant 
sounds effectually prevent a foreigner from under- 
standing a word when pronounced, and it is 
impossible for him to inquire for a person, town, 
street, or number — a bad place, Russia, to be 
lost in. The Russian dictionary contains over 
90,000 words. Poetry in such a diluted language 
Avould seem to lack that epigrammatic terseness 



49 

which is essential to convey force and emphasis. 
To describe such a people under such conditions 
and at a single sitting is impossible. It would 
require a local residence for years, and the entire 
space of twenty newspapers, to convey anything 
like an adequate idea of the Russian Empire, the 
country and its people, to say nothing of its his- 
tory. I can only reflect a few surface observa- 
tions. To do this in the briefest manner may 
carry me — I do not know where. 

I entered Russia from the North. It would 
have made no difference had it been from the 
east, the south, or the west. Russia is fortified 
on all sides, not alone by fortresses and guns, but 
by a secret espionage, which, while it cannot be 
located or described, is felt, and one insensibly 
proceeds with caution. One is not permitted to 
leave a car or a boat, or to enter a hotel, or 
again to leave a city, without showing a passport 
and having it duly indorsed. But more anon. 

Cronstadt is the seaward sentinel of St. Peters- 
burg. Seven islands in the middle of a wide, 
shallow bay, the islands covered by immense 
forts, and the channel to be traversed by vessels 
winding between them, creates an impression 



that this is not one of Russia's weak points. 
Indeed, one look into the throats of those frown- 
ing guns conveys an idea of impregnability. The 
next impression of national strength made upon 
my mind was by the extent of Russia's wheat 
fields. It so happened that I followed the 
harvesting of cereals through Belgium, Den- 
mark, Sweden, and parts of Russia. From the 
Enghsh Channel to the Ural Mountains, and, I 
understand, far beyond them, it seemed to be a 
nearly unbroken field of yellow grain. American 
farmers and merchants will do well to note the 
results of my somewhat careful observation of 
Russia's now developing resources, when I say 
that our country has no longer a comer on wheat. 
The same remark may be applied to tobacco. 
I am of the impression that soon very little of 
either of these now important articles of export 
will cross the Atlantic Ocean to enrich our peo- 
ple. Quality, not quantity, will not long hence 
be the measure we must bear in mind. The 
average wheat crop of the United States is about 
twelve bushels per acre. If Russia, by reason 
of poor farming, averages eight bushels per acre, 
she can, I think, owing to the cheapness of her 



51 

land and labor, undersell us. Apparently, she 
has enough wheat harvested this year to feed the 
entire world. 

St. Petersburg may well be styled the magnifi- 
cent city of the Neva. Its streets are broad, 
its buildings massive, its parks numerous, its 
museums interesting, and its monuments grand. 
I have endeavored to refrain from reference to 
pictures, statuary, churches, architecture, and art, 
which most travelers, who write concerning Eu- 
rope, describe with minuteness, but a part of 
the charm and bloom of Eastern countries would 
be wanting were the aesthetic wholly eliminated 
from what I say. 

PoHtical institutions develop varied civiliza- 
tions. In Russia, largely in Germany and Eng- 
land, and in all old countries, it is difficult, and 
in some of them it is impossible, for a young man 
to change his vocation from that of his father or 
from the occupation in which he first started in 
his efibrt to gain a hvehhood. Once a cobbler 
always a cobbler. Manufacturing privileges are 
largely farmed out as monopolies, titles are in- 
herited, and public works are carried on by fa- 
vored agents of the governments. Hence the 



supenority of Eastern art, Continental cookery, 
and Oriental architecture. It is not unusual to 
meet the best talent of these countries represented 
in hotel porters, in chefs in kitchens and in paint- 
ers of madonnas and chisellers of images. In 
our country, men of similar ability would be con- 
ducting manufacturing establishments, building 
railroads, managing banks, and serving as legis- 
lators in the United States Senate. I must there- 
fore refer to Russian art — only refer to it, noth- 
ing more. 

In front of the Hermitage Museum at St. 
Petersburg are ten monolithic Siberian marble 
statues, supporting the portico of the building, 
each one of which is fifteen feet high, and fully 
developing, in the most ideal manner, Herculean 
strength. In this great depository of national 
wealth, among many other things, is a solid jas- 
per vase ten feet broad, sixteen feet long, and 
about nine feet high. St. Isaac's Cathedral has 
four equal fronts in the form of a cross. At each 
of the facades project great porticos supported 
by double rows of monolithic columns seven feet 
in diameter and sixty feet high — sixty-four in all. 
They are sublimely beautiful. They tantalize the 



53 

mind by their grandeur, they soften the feelings 
with their poetic symmetry, they undermine puny 
selfishness by their immensity. The effect is like 
that portrayed by Napoleon, when, standing in 
the shadow of Egyptian antiquity, he said to his 
soldiers : " From yonder pyramids forty centuries 
look down upon us." 

The river Neva is here about half a mile wide. 
It is crossed by ten bridges, lighted by gas or 
electricity. Seen in the evening, with miles of 
similar lights reflected in the water from the 
quays made busy by hurrying crowds of men, 
women and vehicles, and enlivened by music 
from numerous out-of-door gardens, the scene is 
one of exhilaration and exceptional beauty. 

The driving in the streets of St. Petersburg is 
something to be remembered. The private car- 
riages are fine barouches, quite like our own, and 
generally drawn by black Tartarian or Bulgarian 
stallions. These animals have long manes and 
tails, and are driven at a rate of speed that 
would make the commissioners of Central Park 
stare and clear the Concourse of people in a short 
time. The Drosky is a small four-wheeled, one- 
horse carriage, very low in the body, seating two 



54 

passengers, and a driver in front. All drivers 
wear long overcoats reaching to their feet, 
pleated over the hips, and bustled behind. The 
cap is low, broad on top, with a curved rim. It 
is wholly unlike any other head-gear I have else- 
where seen — a cross between an inverted tin pan 
and a Parisian swell's full-dress, curled-rim stove- 
pipe hat. Around the top of the hat are attached 
several small quills or feathers, in numbers ac- 
cording to the Cossack or provincial rank of the 
driver. The harness is made of very small pieces 
of strong leather. It is attached to the carriage 
or wagon by double traces, one to the whifFie- 
tree and one at the end of the axletree outside 
of the hub — an extra precaution against acci- 
dents. Over the horse's shoulders and his col- 
lar is raised an ornamental ox-bow about twenty 
inches in height. Within and on this bow are 
arranged pretty tassels and small bells. In Mos- 
cow horses attached to omnibuses, hotel coaches, 
and private carriages are driven four abreast. 
Being conveyed from the depot in one of those 
oriental equipages, one feels as if he were enter- 
ing the chariot-races of the Olympian games. 
Paris has its Versailles, Berlin its Potsdam, 



55 



and of course St. Petersburg has its Peterhof. 
It is said that the palaces, gardens, and fountains 
of the first-named place cost Louis XIV. — in 
other v/ords, cost the people of France — 200,- 
000,000 dollars. I do not doubt it. It is not 
an easy matter to obtain facts pertaining to the 
folly of Russian imperialism, but it is safe to say 
that at Peterhof enough money has been wasted 
upon ornate palaces, artificial rivers, tumbling 
cascades and spouting fountains, to create a re- 
bellion anywhere except under a tyrannical gov- 
ernment like that of Russia. Walking or driving 
for the distance of a mile immediately under- 
neath the fifty-foot plateau upon which the pal- 
aces are located, the prisms of water rise from 
out of all imaginable kinds of artistic figures, and 
sheets of water tumble over cascade steps of sil- 
ver and of gold, enter subterranean channels and 
again raise their sparkling columns in aerial flights 
below our feet, and then proceed, rippling and 
foaming, on their way to the sea. There are lit- 
erally thousands of these fountain jets. They 
are very beautiful; but who pays for them? This 
is a question which involuntarily crowds upon 
the mind when one sees such oriental splendor — 



56 



such an awful waste of money, by the side of so 
much poverty and misery. 

I have seen barefooted Russian men following 
a cow hitched to a forked stick for a plow, under- 
taking to prepare their land for wheat, while their 
food was boiled weeds and their beds were bun- 
dles of straw. I have seen women — barefooted 
of course — threshing their little stacks of wheat 
and rye with a flail upon the bare ground as a 
threshing floor; or, again, others of them taking 
handfuls of grain and whipping the heads over 
the edge of a board for a threshing machine, 
while still others would throw the grain in 
the air for the wind — as a fanning mill — to 
blow away the chafl". Then I have seen those 
poor creatures with baskets upon their backs 
and a strap across their foreheads, carrying 
this grain for miles to the market town, to buy, 
perchance, a few yards of calico for baby's 
gown; but mostly to obtain some rubles and 
copecks, for what ? — to pay for the magnificent 
palaces and the perfumed fountains at Peterhof, 
which they have never beheld. More than this. 
I have seen stalwart men and comely women 
carrying their bundles and marching between 



57 



soldiers on their long 4000 miles journey to Si- 
beria — and death; their crimes being the world's 
old story — protesting against taxation without 
representation. 

The foregoing remarks are but an introduction 
to an anomalous, contradictory, and most inter- 
esting people. Progressive it is by instinct, yet 
restrained from rapid development by a severe 
taxation, by a transfer of its laboring population 
from wealth-creating to property-destroying ma- 
chines, and by the impoverishing demands of an 
exacting and oppressive ecclesiastical power — 
two tyrannies, each pandering to and abetting 
the other, their purpose being to keep the popu- 
lace in ignorance as to their rights and their 
strength if united in opposing their oppressors. 
To convey a proper understanding of these ques- 
tions, I must, after liberating my mind by a 
little desultory talk, occupy some considerable 
space. A consciousness of my inability to grasp 
and present Russian civiHzation almost paralyzes 
my effort to proceed with the hazardous under- 
taking. 



m 




VI. 

Russia. 



Productions — Moscow the Oriental — A Thousand 
Greek Churches— The Kremlin — Its Treasures 
—The Great Bell— Thirty Dead Czars. 

THE straightest and probably the best built 
400 miles of railroad in the world is between 
St. Petersburg and Moscow. The contractors 
who completed this enterprise were two Ameri- 
cans — Messrs. Winans, of Baltimore, and Har- 
rison, of Philadelphia. * They are said to have 
pocketed some $15,000,000 each as a reward 
for their enterprise. Trains upon the road are 
numerous, cars good, freight business heavy, sta- 
tion-houses fine, and meals first-class. Eight 
telegraph wires are in use between the two cities. 
The land is slightly undulating, but presents a 
nearly level appearance. The principal crops are 
wheat, rye, oats, and barley. There are many 



59 

large herds of fine cattle. Sheep are exten- 
sively raised in southern Russia. There are very- 
few in the northern part. 

Nowhere I have been within its boundaries 
"have I found Russia dead. Upon the contrary, 
it is an active nation. All the resources of 
national greatness are everywhere visible. The 
people only need liberty. Give them liberty — 
they are already intelligent — and they would 
not only make Cossack tyrants follow Bourbon 
princes into exile, but they would make all 
Europe tremble. 

St. Petersburg is modern and Germanic in its 
external characteristics, while Moscow is ancient 
and oriental. If it is distance that lends en- 
chantment to the viev/, it is the exceptional, the 
remote, and the grand that emphasizes distinc- 
tions, draws upon the imagination, and tinctures 
our surroundings with romance. At Moscow we 
were one-third the distance around the globe. 
The difference in time is eight hours. While you 
in New York are beholding the sun setting be- 
hind the Orange mountains in the West, we in 
the morning of the next day are viewing him 
rise from out of the Volgan plains in the East. 



6o 



You, at a distance, think of Moscow as one of 
many almost mythical places. Here upon the 
spot, whirled through crooked, narrow streets 
behind four finely caparisoned Tartarian steeds 
abreast — seeing men in long robes embracing 
each other at the doors of their shops; beholding 
shrines and burning lamps upon the corners and 
in almost every room in every hotel, shop, and 
depot; inhaling incense in every alley and catch- 
ing glimpses of beautiful minarets, rising like pic- 
tures into the sky, we find that Moscow is indeed 
a reality and not at all a myth. 

In two such distinct forms of government as 
that under which Moscow exists, and our own, 
with long ages of ancestral habits clinging to her 
people, we here witness conditions in dress, in 
houses, in utensils, in architecture, and in the 
evidences of religious zeal, that almost make us 
question our relationship to the race with which 
we are brought into contact. So much the more 
interesting. No wonder that Napoleon was si- 
lent with amazement when he first caught sight 
of the Muscovite capital, then not as grand as 
now, and containing only one-third of the popu- 
lation which it has at the present time. 



6i 



I am informed that there are in Moscow about 
looo Greek churches. They are a composite of 
CathoHc, Mohammedan, and Oriental architec- 
ture, and are probably the most beautiful churches 
in the world. When the ornate and wonderful 
St. Basil Church was completed, the architect 
was asked by his master, Ivan the Terrible, if 
that effort was his very best; if, under any cir- 
cumstances or for any consideration, and with 
any amount of money, he could construct a more 
beautiful edifice. The reply was that he could 
not; to make a more beautiful structure, he said, 
would be impossible. Thereupon the architect's 
eyes were put out so that even he should not copy 
his own sublimely beautiful creation. I think 
that not one of these thousand churches has less 
than three minarets and domes. Most of them 
have five, some have twenty -five — always an odd 
number, for a grand central effect — and some 
have from fifty to one hundred. They are col- 
ored white, green, red or blue, or are covered 
with silver or gold. Most of them have chimes 
of bells, and I presume that there are in the city 
of Moscow 8000 church bells. 

It was but vesterday that I stood on the emi- 



62 



nence — about six miles west of the city — where 
Napoleon stood on that eventful day, when he 
first beheld Moscow's 5000 minarets, spires, and 
domes, and the Kremlin's golden roofs glisten- 
in the sun, and from whence«he surveyed the 
treasures which he thought would soon be at his 
disposal. I traversed the same road which he 
took when he marched his 500,000 men to an 
expected victory that proved to be the most mel- 
ancholy defeat recorded on the pages of history. 
The immense treasures of the museums in the 
Kremhn had been removed and the sullen Mus- 
covites applied the torch to their own devoted 
homes. The sequel is well known. Moscow 
has been rebuilt, and its treasures and relics have 
been returned, supplemented by the emperor's 
cannons, flags, carriages, eating utensils, and 
numerous other trophies taken from the fleeing 
invaders. 

To enumerate the wonders of these Kremlin 
museums is impossible. To describe any of 
them is to select one jeweled crown out of 
many, one diamond out of millions. Silver and 
gold, malachite, lapis-lazuU, jasper, rubies, dia- 
monds and sapphires are not only worked into 



63 



crowns, thrones, and vestments in almost endless 
profusion, but they are even formed into furni- 
ture and make fire-places, walls, and ceilings. 
Here is the tocsin bell which sounded the signal 
for plying the torch to the city ; there are the red 
stairs upon which Napoleon ascended to the 
throne of the Romanoff kings ; here is the sword 
with v/hich the Terrible Ivan beheaded his own 
sons; there the furs that once enveloped the 
form of Catherine the Noble; and here, again, 
are the tools with which Peter the Great worked 
when he builded ships and empires, for it was his 
knowledge of the wants of his people that gave 
them the mighty impulse which yet jars two 
continents. Then we were shown through the 
great throne room, the silver rooms, the gold 
rooms, the pink rooms, the white rooms, the blue 
rooms, the jasper rooms, and the crystal rooms, 
and then we wound up intricate staircases to the 
secret trial room, — still higher, — to the dungeon 
and execution rooms, where voices were stifled 
without remorse, and where cries could not be 
heard by sympathizing friends. 

The far-famed great bell of Moscow has been 
elevated in proper position upon a solid brick 



64 



Structure about five feet high, near a church 
within the KremUn walls. It is a curiosity. In 
size it far exceeds my school-day conceptions. I 
therefore returned and applied my measuring- 
tape around its orifice. It at first hung — if ever 
it was hung — on a low wooden structure where 
it now stands. The frame is said to have been 
burned, and when the bell fell to the ground a 
piece seven feet high was broken from its disk. 
I was not there when the event occurred, but I 
venture the assertion that that bell, with a down- 
ward orifice of twenty-six feet diameter, was 
not buried in the ground, as historians record 
was the case. The bell measures 78 feet in cir- 
cumference, and is, I think, about 20 feet high. 
I am aware that cyclopedists give the measure- 
ment as 60 feet in diameter, and 19 feet 3 inches 
as the height. Against this I simply set my own 
measurement. The iron clapper is about 9 feet 
long, and is said to weigh 40 poods, or 1600 
pounds. I did not lift it. The statement is, I 
think, quite correct. 

Moscow contains about 800,000 people. It 
is surrounded by an outer line of earth fortifica- 
tions 23 miles in circumference. There is a sec- 



65 

ond or inner stone wall seven miles in circumfer- 
ence. Around it is a boulevard or park about 
300 feet wide planted with trees and patches of 
flowers. Still, inside of all, there is a higher and 
more massive stone wall surrounding the Krem- 
lin, one and three-fourth miles in circumference 
and enclosing 98 acres. The celebrated Krem- 
lin is on an elevation 100 feet above the little 
river Moskva, which winds nearly around it. 
Within the Kremlin walls, entered by five gates, 
are the palaces of the Czar, the treasury, public 
buildings, museums, libraries, and royal churches. 
In one of these churches I counted sarcophagi, 
containing the mortal remains of thirty dead 
emperors. The cost of these buildings and 
the wealth contained in them is simply fabu- 
lous — indescribable. Think of the interior of 
a large church being literally lined — walls, ceil- 
ings, and retiring-rooms — with plates of solid 
gold one-sixteenth of an inch thick. Also 
think of 70,000 pearls worked into one suit of 
clothes worn, perhaps, once by one of those dead 
czars. But these things, and many others quite 
as barbaric in their splendor, and quite as im- 
poverishing to the people, are here in the Krem- 



66 



lin. These are some of the things which the unfor- 
tunate dwellers under tyrannical governments 
have to pay for. They are what Americans do 
not have to pay for. It is readily seen why Na- 
poleon wanted to get into the Kremlin, at Mos- 
cow, and why he imperilled the lives of 500,000 
men in his endeavor to accomplish this purpose. 







^^nWBo^p,^^ 



VII. 

Russia. 



Her Landed Possessions— 800,000 Men Under 
Arms — Toiling Women— Religious Supersti- 
tions — Farming— 70,000,000 People in Long 
Houses — Peter the Great. 

THE landed possessions of Russia extend 
nearly 6,000 miles in one direction and 
over 2,000 miles in another. They constitute 
one twenty-fifth part of all the land on both 
hemispheres. Russia has ah-eady absorbed and 
incorporated into her body poUtic 100 dif- 
ferent nations. Still she goes on to conquer 
— and for good reason. This mighty people are 
inland. Nowhere, near the nation's populous 
centers, have they free access to the oceans of 
the world. That some time they will break 



68 



down their present barriers, I think we may take 
for granted. Until this purpose is accomplished, 
Russia will more and more attract the attention 
of m.en and nations. It is not, however, my 
purpose to discuss Continental politics, but to 
state existing facts so far as they have come 
under my observation, and leave each one to 
draw his own deduction as to results. 

The present condition of the Russian people 
is bad; before the emancipation of the serfs it 
must have been simply terrible. The peace 
army of Russia keeps 820,000 men away from 
productive industry at all times. In time of 
war, she can strip the country of 4,000,000 men. 
As at all times she is at w^ar somewhere, either 
in Europe or Asia, it seldom occurs that she has 
less than 1,500,000 men to support, who do 
nothing in return, excepting kill other men. The 
cost is something enormous. But the cost in 
rubles is, however, not the only national loss 
that comes from converting farmers into soldiers. 
It unnaturally forces women into the fields to 
perform men's labor. This not only degrades 
the women; it also degrades their offspring, 
suppresses their ambition and debars them from 



69 



education. Education of the young is nov/ the 
lever which raises a nation to prosperity and 
power. 

A favored few of the wealthy class and mem- 
bers of noble families in Russia live luxuriously, 
but the great mass of the laboring population 
exist in penury. Male farm labor commands 
but twenty cents per day. Women in hotels 
and in house service receive only about three 
dollars per month. The food of the peasants is 
principally lentils, rye bread, potatoes and a little 
meat, although a sheep, aside from its v>'ool, 
may be purchased for twenty cents, a cow for 
three dollars, and an ox for five dollars. I heard 
of good four-year old horses being sold for ten 
dollars each. The standard of living may be 
comprehended by realizing the fact that in the 
United States our people consume on the average 
1 20 pounds of meat and 41 pounds of grain and 
vegetable food each per annum, while Russia's 
population consumes but 54 pounds of meat and 
18 pounds of grain and vegetables per person 
during the same period of time. 

A greater curse to the Russian people than 
even the tyranny of their goveniment, is the 



70 



tyranny of their religion. It has a hold upon 
and control over them which, at a distance, it is 
impossible fully to realize. The Greek Catholic 
Church, like some other ecclesiastical denomina- 
tions in our own country, claims to inherit the 
true succession from Christ. The people do not 
question the claim. It also claims that its 
vice-gerent patriarchs are infallible. The people 
believe it. They obey implicitly whatever the 
priests command. A first commandment is to 
give to the Church a large portion of their earn- 
ings, and a last commandment is like unto it — 
give to the priest half of what remains. When, 
at one time, the Church issued an order that as 
potatoes were not mentioned in the Bible, the 
people must not eat potatoes, potatoes were ban- 
ished and the people went back to eating more 
weeds. 

Such a statement is received with incredulity. 
It is with difficulty we can believe that a Christian 
church could thus abase a people. Possible! 
Why, the doctrine that " ignorance is the 
mother of devotion," was a cardinal faith in all 
of the older Christian countries, and as to some 
things, it still is. Bad as is ecclesiastical tyranny 



71 

in Russia, it is not as debasing here as it has 
been elsewhere. I think that I am coiTect in 
saying that the hostiHty of the Christian Church 
to science, inventions and discoveries which 
might increase the knowledge and elevate the 
condition of mankind, has been the cause of 
more misery, persecution and suffering and a 
greater influence in retarding man's advance- 
ment than ail other causes which can be named. 
The punishment of scientific men, the destruc- 
tion of libraries and secular literature and the 
substitution for them of blind faith and the 
enforcing inquisition, which for a thousand years 
cowed the intellect of the Christian world with 
an impenetrable mantle rightfully denominated 
the " Dark Ages," were but the legitimate off- 
spring of this unnatural parent. 

When, in 650, Pepin of France sent to Paul I. 
of Rome for the loan of useful books, there v>'ere 
but two non-ecclesiastical books to be found in 
Italy — a rude grammar and the unimportant 
memoirs of Dionysius. The science of chemistry 
was pronounced to be necromancy. The 
church's substitute for chemistry was transub- 
stantiation. The use of medicine was inter- 



72 



dieted and doctors were proscribed. Priests and 
prayer alone could cure disease. But the priesls 
charged more for their prayers than formerly 
doctors had charged for medicine. V/hen fanning 
mills were first brought into use — not a very long 
time ago — the Presbyterian ministers of Scotland 
forbade their employment, as contrary to the 
Scriptures. The Bible says, " The wind bloweth 
where it listeth." To create artificial wind v/as 
usurping the functions of God ! I have seen 
Russian farmers throv/ing their grain in the air 
for the wind to blow away the chaff. When 
there is no wind they must eat the chaff and the 
cockle with their rye flour. 

From your point of view you will doubtless say 
that this Russian religious teaching is heathenish. 
You are no doubt quite correct — it is heathen- 
ish. But these Russian Christians draw their 
construction of duty from the same Bible from 
which we draw our definition of duty. Is not 
the essence — the philosophy — the authority, the 
same the world over ? Are not the differences 
in formxS merely the same thing under different 
names ? Science is excluded from all of them. 
Special providences and not natural laws control 



73 



them. What is termed " inspiration " teaches 
the abnegation of reason — the right of rehgious 
teachers to do the thinking and expounding, in 
each sect. The teachers think and expound dif- 
ferently in different countries and under different 
circumstances. This is all the difference I can 
perceive. 

In our country it is expected that the Presi- 
dent of the United States will occasionally issue 
a proclamation to the people, requesting them 
to assemble in their places of worship, and 
according to circumstances endeavor to influence 
God to send rain and harvests and assist our 
armies to kill more of the opposing forces than 
they kill of our men. In another country the 
devotees kneel before shrines and try to pro- 
pitiate God by burning sweet smelling incense 
and parading images of their saints dressed in 
expensive velvet and gold cloth. Others seek 
the same result by erecting costly churches with 
soaring spires and permitting their robed priests 
to march from one altar to another and mumble 
over superstitious texts in unctuous and unintelli- 
gible language. Possibly God may be captivated 
by these seductive displays, but I doubt if any 



74 

fully intelligent person believes he is. I have 
noticed that these spiritual expounders of the 
inspired scriptures put lightning rods on their 
churches just the same as do the Wall street 
gamblers on their bank buildings or the v/hisky 
makers on their distilleries. 

Which of these varied religious systems is the 
right one ? I do not know, neither does any 
one else. To some persons one of them appears 
quite as sensible as any of the others. Each 
proceeds from the same cause — is founded upon 
the same authority. They are the fruit of the 
same tree — the result of a philosophy which in 
one place accepts commandments from the 
clouds; in another worships fetiches, and in still 
another propitiates diaboHcal deities with heca- 
tombs of human victims. 

When in the thirteenth century the Roman 
Cathohc Church found itself encumbered with 
two and then three Popes, the question arose 
whether there could be two or more infallible 
authorities. If so, which was the true Pope ? 
The Greek Catholics saw their opportunity. 
They answered the pervading thought by refer- 
ring the doubtful to their single patriarch. He 



75 



was the true descendarst from Christ. Their 
Church was not divided. It profited by the 
schism in the Roman Church. But Russia at 
that time was largely Mohammedan, and that 
religious order was accustomed to building extra- 
ordinarily attractive church edifices. Then these 
two religious rivals began a race in sensuous 
display, lavishing untold wealth upon churches, 
shrines, pictures, vestments and other ecclesias- 
tical paraphernalia, which are still a principal 
attraction throughout the East. They are won- 
derfully gorgeous, and they are sumptuously 
expensive. Of course they add to the otherwise 
heavy burdens of the people. 

The crops and products of Russia are princi- 
pally cereals, flax, cattle, tobacco, sheep and 
wool. It is quite evident that the farmers know 
how to cultivate the soil, for occasionally are to 
be seen evidences of such knowledge. Gen- 
erally, however, the cultivation is very bad. One 
horse or one ox does all the farm work. In no 
instance have I seen two horses or two oxen 
attached to a plow, drag or farm wagon. The 
plowing is artistically done, but shallow. The 
furrows are not over four or five inches deep. 



76 

Fertilizers are but seldom used. The land is 
exhausted, but the crops are better than I should 
think possible under the circumstances. In very 
many localities one can see where young forests 
of five, twenty and fifty years growth, have been 
planted over old furrows. These forests will by 
and by produce a crop of timber and revitalize 
the soil when removed. 

I met a well-informed landed proprietor, 
speaking my own language, whose estates are 
one thousand miles east of St. Petersburg. This 
gentleman informed me that eastern Russia is the 
richest part of the empire. The river Volga is 
navigable from its mouth in the Caspian Sea for 
two thousand miles, or within a few hours of 
Moscow and St. Petersburg. On that river are 
six hundred steamboats; more, I think, than are 
to be found on the Mississippi, Ohio and 
Missouri rivers combined. On the broad alluvial 
lands of the Volga and other rivers, he said, the 
soil is deep and inexhaustible. "There," said 
my informant, " we use the American planter, 
reaper and steam threshing machines." I have 
seen none of these labor-saving implements in 
Russia. Not one. I did see a few of them in 



77 



Sweden, and some again in Poland. The Russian 
plow is small, with a straight beam and a straight 
inclined upright piece intersected by a peg for a 
handle. It is drawn by one horse or an ox, or a 
cow, and of course can only turn a narrow, light 
furrow. The harrows are small, and are gener- 
ally made with wooden teeth. The wagons are 
proportionately small and clumsy, sometimes 
without iron tires. Domestic animals seem to 
be well cared for; the log stables for cattle being 
larger than the houses for families. 

Almost the entire farming population of Russia 
live in houses made of small logs and v/ith straw 
thatched roofs. Generally the logs are sawed or 
hewed square on three sides, the bark being 
peeled from the fourth or outer side. They are 
well mitred at the ends and snugly fitted together. 
These houses are quite comfortable in appear- 
ance and are impervious to cold. The entire 
cost of the material required for a sample house 
cannot, I think, be more than $ioo. Yet in 
these huts reside over 70,000,000 of Russian 
people. At first sight one would say that the 
outlook is discouraging; the hope of the in- 
mates small. And so they are. But when we 



reflect for a moment we perceive how possibili- 
ties may change results. At St. Petersburg may- 
be seen a Uttle log hut exactly similar to those 
I have described, in which lived Peter the Great, 
the founder of Russia's present civilization. The 
residence of William Henry Harrison at North 
Bend, Ohio, when he was elected president of 
the United States, was no better -than these. 
General Jackson, Henry Clay, Webster, Lincoln 
and Garfield were born in similar humble abodes. 
And Russia has this day many unknown dwellers 
in log cabins, who, when despotism and inherited 
power are replaced by freedom and elective 
officials, will step to the front and conduct the 
affairs of that nation as similar men have con- 
ducted the affairs of the great western republic. 



pes". C;"--£^^f*'^« 

SEP f? 1892 



cedeftJ 



VIII. 

KUSSIA, 



Is She Tending Tov/ards Republican Freedom? — 
Liberation of the Serfs — Favorable Results — 
Schools and Education — Community Farming 
— Stimulating Effects of Individual Proprietor- 
ship. 

AT St. Helena Napoleon said that within fifty 
years Europe would be either Republican 
or Cossack. He was wrong merely as to time. 
There are many forces at work which to me in- 
dicate that Russia is traveling the paths which 
converge at the goal of repubhcanism. It does 
not involve prolixity to explain my meaning, al- 
though it is a very large subject to get hold of, 
and it ought not to be spoiled by undue brevity. 
It is not at all impossible that both events re- 



8o 



ferred to by Napoleon may take place. If once 
Russia becomes Republican she may make Eu- 
rope Cossack. At any rate, it is quite certran 
that the coming hundreds of millions of Russians 
will not remain penned in by either the ice of 
the Baltic or the aUied navies upon the Bos- 
phoriis. The seed is already planted and the 
forces are now in operation which will result in a 
crop of men and of national poHcies that must 
again change the map of Europe. What are 
they? The seed is the spelling-book, and the 
policies are those v/hich tyrannies must hereafter 
yield to intelligent constituencies — which England 
once reluctantly yielded to America, resulting in 
common good to each country. 

The first victory has been already won. Rus- 
sia is an agricultural nation. Her soil is culti- 
vated by communities, not by individuals. In 
no instance have I seen in Russia an isolated 
farmhouse. All the farmers reside in villages 
containing from loo to 500 families each. The 
products of the communities are divided in pro- 
portion to the labor and material contributed by 
each person. To keep the records requires a 
secretary; to settle disputes, arbitrators are neces- 



8i 



sary ; to work the public highways, road masters 
are essential; and to punish the recalcitrant 
and mendacious, a local constabulary is indis- 
pensable. There must be both an appointing 
power and a system of succession. Here is the 
New England town meeting over again. Edu- 
cational, surely! Human nature is, I beHeve, 
the same the world over, simply influenced in its 
development and eccentricities by its environ- 
ment. The places named are places of honor. 
Theoretically, they must be filled by the ablest 
men in the communities, and they are contended 
for with the usual energy allied to ambition for 
honor and distinction. Associating in villages, 
it is impossible that these men will not discuss 
their own interests, such as are involved in the 
fitness of candidates for office, how to raise the 
best crops, whose ox will bring the most money, 
the marriage relations of their children, and so 
forth. Further, these little comm_unities will nat- 
urally have theatres and debating societies, and 
the men will participate in religious services. 
Still educational. 

So far good. Not long ago these toilers were 
tenants or serfs. Now they are landowners and 



82 



freemen. They comprise 82 per cent of the 
population of the empire. From their ranks 
must be recruited the constables, the bailiffs, and 
the soldiers. By and by it will not be treason 
to discuss polities and taxation, for a majority of 
the people will then be rebels, and a minority 
cannot march a majority of a people to dun- 
geons or to Siberia. Burke once said: "It is 
impossible to indict a whole nation." It is 
equally impossible to imprison or exile a whole 
nation. It will be the other chaps, one of these 
days, who will walk the floor, and doubtless then 
their property will pay the expenses of many a 
midnight promenade. The government already 
has ears. It commenced its concessions to these 
tillers of the soil — these makers of the nation's 
wealth — in 1861. Up to that time the land was 
owned by the nobles, and leased to the commu- 
nities on the hardest terms that greed could de- 
mand or necessity submit to. The soil became 
impoverished, the serfs were beggars, and the 
nobles bankrupt. The nation was in no better 
condition. The government, with the assistance 
of some of the more liberal nobles, took posses- 
sion of all lands, giving therefor its bonds, paya- 



83 

ble 2 1^ per cent per annum for forty years. Then 
the government turned the land over to the com- 
munities upon the same terms, holding mort- 
gages therefor, redeemable at pleasure within forty 
years. Twenty-hve years have already elapsed 
and I am informed that an average of 60 per 
cent of the mortgage debts have been paid. The 
energy incited by proprietorship may be readily 
seen. The influences here for a betterment of 
the condition of the people are the same as they 
were in England, France, and Germany, when, 
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the feudal 
system fell to pieces. Instead of a few dukes, 
barons, margraves, and counts, to eat meat and 
wear respectable clothes, and millions of men 
without a coin, the dukes and margraves now do 
the begging and the millions keep the manufac- 
tories and the shops going. 

In 1 90 1, or in just fifteen more years, these Rus- 
sian communities may divide and sell their lands. 
Then v/ill commence individual ownership and 
individual farming, and then the real stimulus 
and competition growing out of individual pro- 
prietorship will actually begin. It has already 
begun in a system of education. 



84 



The conditions I have described rendered it 
necessary that a leaven of learning should get 
into the communities. The government's security 
on its mortgages would be increased. "If in ad- 
dition to paying our taxes, contributing our 
quota to the army and taking ca,re of our mort- 
gages, we are willing to tax ourselves still further 
for schools, it will be good for us and it will be 
good for the government," said the farmers. 
Finally, the farmers were permitted to divide 
themselves into school precincts, taking in, on the 
average, about one million inhabitants each. 
The population of Russia proper at the present 
time is about ninety million souls. There are, I 
understand, some ninety of these school precincts. 
The communities may vote how much money 
shall be raised for school purposes by a general 
tax within each precinct. 

I am informed that at the present time these 
districts average 300 schools each. Say that they 
have but fifty scholars attending each school. 
Here are 1,250,000 children with reading books. 
The books being distributed, it is quite likely that 
others than school children will get a peep into 
them. It is gratifying to see with what energy 



8s 



Russian people improve such educational priv- 
ileges as they have. A school at Zurich, Switzer- 
land, of over sixty female scholars, enumerated 
fifty of its pupils from Russia. Can the doctrine 
of the divine right of kings, and the unequal 
privileges of certain classes, long withstand the 
power of education when shared by the masses ? 
Can tyranny forever cope with the forces now 
seen to be arrayed against it ? I do not believe 
so. 

The rudiments of empire here 
Are plastic yet and warm ; 

The chaos of a mighty world 
T j roundine into form. 



^ OFFICE OEP'T. 



POSTOFFICEDEP^T. 

Nuv i^mi 

LIBRARY, 



IX. 

UUSSIA, 



Obstacles to Progress — 40,000 Glittering Church 
Domes — Natural Resources— Petroleum Geys- 
ers — What Russian People Have Done and 
What They May Do— Value of Home Com- 
merce — The Cossack Republic. 

RUSSIA cannot very rapidly change her form 
of government. The obstacles which pre- 
vent her articulating with the outside world are : 

Mrs^ — Her language. This cannot be easily 
acquired by others. Those speaking it will not 
readily learn any other language, consequently 
they cannot know what Western people are do- 
ing. Russia's civilization must be largely her 
own. 

Second — Her apparent military necessities. 



87 

She must, and sometime will, have a frontier 
upon the Adriatic and the free navigation of the 
Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. These she 
cannot obtain without fighting Austria, Turkey 
and doubtless all Europe. How soon the chances 
of war will be in her favor no one can tell. 
Hearts are yet to bleed, lives are to be sacrificed 
and treasuries are to be supplied by severe taxa- 
tion. 

Pride, wealth and glory ask man yet to bleed. 
And holy men quote Scripture for the deed. 

Third — The domination of a showy, attractive, 
and cruelly expensive ecclesiastical system, hav- 
ing its head in Jerusalem, and its cosdy, glittering 
churches everywhere within the empire. Christ 
shelled wheat in his hands for food. He blessed 
little children and taught humility to mankind. 
These ostentatious churches and ghttering domes 
so plentiful throughout Russia hardly look like 
disseminators of humihty, or the burdens they lay 
upon poor people, like blessings to famishing 
children. One may travel a hundred miles in any 
direction and see no family residence but log 
cabins. Intermingled with these humble thatched 



88 



roofed houses at convenient distances, there rise 
against the horizon magnificent churches with 
gilded minarets and domes, each one having, 
I think, a chime of bells. There are in Russia 
40,000 of such churches. The cost of any one 
of them is greater than that of all the houses 
of 100,000 people who support them. It is 
true" that Russia allows the Roman Catholic, 
Lutheran and Episcopalian bodies a chance to 
exist, but the Greek Cathohc so strongly domin- 
ates all others that its adherents alone make laws 
to govern all of them. It is not intended that 
the Greek Church shall be weakened. No person 
in Russia is permitted to change his or her re- 
Hgion, except in case of marriage, when the hus- 
band must embrace the religion of the wife, which 
attracts more men than it alienates from, the 
favored church. 

The foregoing considerations are subject to 
many qualifications as to retardment or advance- 
ment. A moral revolution headed by a FrankHn, 
or a military revolution headed by a Bolivar, 
would hasten the dawn of liberty, or a revolution 
led by a Bonaparte would prolong the night of 
suffering. 



89 

Russia is a country rich in resources. She is 
peopled by an heroic race of men. She has a 
rich soil upon which to produce food and plenty 
of coal with which to manufacture goods. Some 
time in the not distant future she will take her 
place among the moral and physical forces of the 
world, and instead of wasting her wealth in burn- 
ing incense before cosdy shrines, and in main- 
taining a million men to suppress the free utter- 
ances of other men, she will be multiplying steam 
engines and building seminaries of learning. Let 
it not be said that her climate is against her. The 
centre of her temtory is on the thermal line of 
highest civilizations. Light is as necessary to 
vegetable development as solar heat. The long 
days of summer ripen barley in northern Russia 
in sixty days from the seed. It requires four 
months with us. The fig is a prolific crop in the 
south, and the temperature of her winters is 
simply conducive to activity. She has for cen- 
turies been the nursery of hardy men. It was 
on her vast plains and on those of neighboring 
Tartary where vv-ere bred the Vandals, the LIuns, 
and the Goths, who in the early centuries swept 
across Germany, subdued Gaul and Spain, 



90 

traversed northern Africa, returned into Europe, 
put the Greeks under tribute, gave to the world 
a style of architecture which even now we are 
proud to imitate, and finally placed Theodoric 
triumphant on the throne of the imperial Caesars. 
Let us not underestimate the future influence of 
Russia. She is already our principal competitor 
in producing cereals, wool, flax, hemp, tobacco, 
salt, beet sugar, the precious metals, and 
petroleum; and she is quite sure to become 
our own and England's competitor in manufac- 
turing cotton, wool, iron and other fabrics. 
She has a canal on the north v/hich, with the 
river Volga, connects the Baltic with the 
Caspian Sea on the east. She also has a great 
ship canal which completes the circuit and 
connects the Caspian with the Black Sea on the 
south. A well-devised system of railroads inter- 
laces her vast territory. She has telegraphic con- 
nection, wholly on her own soil, from St. Peters- 
burg and Moscow, across Siberia to the Pacific 
Ocean and thence to China and Japan. Her 
petroleum output is something fabulous. Im- 
mense geysers throw ceaseless streams of oil into 
the air — one of them to the height of 240 feet. 



91 

One firm, the Nobel Brothers, are said to have 
an income of ten per cent on $400,000,000 
from their petroleum interests alone. 

Just as soon as a little more wealth is accu- 
mulated by the Russian peasants, their land will 
be re-fertilized, a sub-soil will be raised to the sur- 
face, labor saving improvements will be brought 
into use, and the sources of the supply of many 
products for the markets of the world will be 
changed, as inevitably as was the position of 
England changed when the American colonies 
threw off the yoke which had so long bound 
them and advertised themselves ready for busi- 
ness. Englishmen will not yet admit what they 
then lost by the exercise of unbearable tyranny 
and for the want of prudential forecast. They 
still blindly say that they monopolize Am^erican 
trade. They say that America trades with them 
to the amount of $400,000,000 a year, but they 
fail to comprehend that Americans trade among 
themselves to the enormous amount of $18,000,- 
000,000 per annum. They boast of their wealth, 
but they are dumb when we inform them that 
the United States inventories $276,000,000 more 
property than their nation possesses, and that 



92 

notwithstanding the striking off of $1,250,000,- 
000 of slave assets and the most destructive war 
the world has ever witnessed, tAvo-thirds of this 
wealth, or $27,500,000,000 have been accumu- 
lated in the twenty years between i860 and 
1880. 

It will be a great deal better for the haughty 
people of this naughty world not to close their 
eyes and ears too arrogantly to the stern facts 
which are locked up in the future Cossack 
republic. 

As at a previous time I have spoken of 
Russian influence in Finland, I must nov/ follow 
Russianism into Poland, where results have been 
wholly different. In the former country the 
Finns preserved their language, their literature, 
and their local parliament; in the latter the 
Poles lost not only their libraries and their local 
government, but their language is being vindic- 
tively forced out of existence. 



Y. 



OSTOFFJCE 




X. 

Russia— Por^AKD . 



Hotels — Incense and Shrines — Depressing Effects 
of Russian Solitvide— Napoleon's Retreat from 
Moscow— Burning of Smolensk. 

OUR hotel at Moscow was the Siaveniske 
Bazar. And a bazar it indeed was. The 
long robed gentleman from Persia was there 
chatting with the turbaned merchant from Con- 
stantinople ; the wooden-shoed Tartar was next 
door neighbor to the long-bearded Caucasian, 
while plain Englishman John was sadly mixed 
with the big trousered Afghan. But what a 
name for a hotel ! Still Siaveniske Bazar is 
more euphonious than the Troi Morens — Three 
Moors — at Augsburg, Bavaria, or than the Pig 
and Turkey in London. The Pig and Turkey 
has the merit of suggesting good dinners, if the 



94 

name be not suggestive of cleanliness, while the 
Slaveniske Bazar is suggestive only of Oriental 
hash. Hovv^ever, we were wholly comfortable at 
the Bazar, and we ought to have felt entirely 
safe against evil-minded persons. High up on 
the wall in one corner of every apartment in the 
hotel hung a small picture of the Madonna, and 
in the public halls were pictures of the bleeding 
Saviour, made luminous with lighted candles and 
sensuous with sweet odors of burning incense. 

Incense and shrines may frighten away the 
devil, but they do not appear to scare thieves in 
the least. I noticed that bolts and locks were 
as much rehed upon to save valuables in saintly 
Moscow and St. Petersburg, as they are in wick- 
ed London and New York. Neither do these 
protective, miracle working devices seem to re- 
duce sickness or prevent conflagrations ; for, sad 
to relate, the death rate of Russia is 50 per cent 
greater than it is in our country, and fire insur- 
ance is three times as high. In ail the railroad 
stations and pubhc places, at every city gate and 
on evcrj clieet and highway in Russia, one may 
bow before shrines and inhale odorous exhala- 
tions — some of which are not saintly. It will 



95 



not answer to say that the Russians are not a 
religious people. I fear that they have too much 
religion and too little grace. 

The topography of Russia is oppressively 
monotonous and tiresomely uninteresting. The 
surface of the country bears the appearance of 
being one vast, level plain. Although slightly 
undulating, the diversity of surface is scarcely 
appreciable. From Holland on the west of 
Europe to the Ural Mountains on the borders of 
Asia, no table land has an elevation of over six 
hundred feet. Woods and farm land, farms and 
wood, only succeed each other. The atmos- 
phere has a funereal quietness ; the houses are all 
weather-beaten, one-story log huts, with no varia- 
tion and with but few embellishments ; the trees 
grow as straight as shipmastsj the rivers have 
but sluggish, lazy currents ; even the smoke 
from chimneys rises in hazy solemnity; men 
move with slow steps, and here all nature seems 
sad and weary. The effect of this quiet same- 
ness is sufficiently dispiriting to have attracted 
the attention of public men. It undermines 
ambition, enfeebles energy and destroys self- 
respect. On the central steppes and in the 



96 

south of Russia, where longer Summers and warm 
nights are added to hot days, a stagnation of 
mental energy ensues, which has impressed itself 
upon the national character. It causes all who 
can to move from place to place. A merchant, 
whose home is near the Bulgarian frontier, said 
to me : "The solitude of our steppes is unendur- 
able. It makes many of our people melancholy 
and indolent ; some of them it causes to become 
careless, dirty and vicious." Few persons take 
so philosophical a view of aesthetic influences as 
did my Russian friend. Change, variety, amuse- 
ment of some kind — running water, tumbling 
cascades, hills, mountains, a circus — something 
to lift the veil of gloom and break satiety, are as 
necessary for contentment, as is variety in food 
necessary to give health to the system. A Gothic 
cottage surrounded by a plot of green grass, a 
few majestic trees, a painted fence, and bright 
colored flowers, with a hill in the distance, gratify 
pride, stimulate energy and develop ambition. 
Such influences are to children a liberal educa- 
tion. They lead to a rivalry vv'hich does not stop 
at one achievement. Such influences are un- 
known among the peasantry of Russia. 



97 



The western loo miles of Russia and the east- 
em 50 miles of Poland is poor, sandy soil, insuf- 
ficiently watered and sparsely populated. From 
Moscow to Berlin is 1,200 miles, and 1,200 miles 
of tamer landscape it has not hitherto been my 
lot to traverse. Without stops over, the ride in 
warm weather in the low com^partment cars of 
Europe is nearly intolerable. Not a mountain, 
waterfall or other object of interest is encoun- 
tered. I never permit myself to read in a car 
when passing through a country the first time. 
Shut up in a close, stuffy room, and separated 
from general companionship, the traveler here 
must entertain him.self by conjuring that he sees 
bears in the woods, by v/atching sun-burnt 
women toiling in the fields, and wondering 
how far it is to the next station, or by the im- 
aginary location of historic events, and in recall- 
ing the history of the country through which he 
may be passing. 

There is no country in Europe which has not 
a history, and a sanguinary history, too. At no 
very remote time mankind seemed to thrive only 
by warfare. How crops were raised or hovels 
constructed in which to live, has to me always 



98 



been a mystery. Northem Europe was first 
peopled by nomadic races. Of course, the fleet- 
est horsemen with the longest spears harvested 
the grain and did the eating. But after a time 
common good led to common compromises; 
tribes consolidated and nations grew. Then 
robbers had a better chance. War became 
glorious. The head of a king, the booty and 
the beauty of a city were worth great risks. 
What was life without scalps, feathers, and honor ? 
The bandit leaders were themselves likely to 
be made princes or crowned kings, and, accord- 
ing to their successes in the murdering business 
Avere first fawned upon, then worshipped, and 
ever since have been called famous, and their 
children considered noble. Well, the countries 
of which I am speaking have more of such tra- 
dition than could be related in a thousand octavo 
pages. I shall not indulge in ancient history — 
not a line — and wdll only refer briefly to two 
short chapters of quite modern events. 

We were at Smolensk, a city 230 miles south- 
east of Moscovv^. It is now a thriving place 
of 30,000 inhabitants, thirty splendid Greek 
churches — one for every thousand souls in it — 



99 



and a million dollar cathedral, extra. But the 
time was when Smolensk, its churches, its cathe- 
dral, and its shops and houses all disappeared, 
every one of them. They were burned. By 
whom; by their owners? No; they were burnt 
by the French. By looking upon a map you 
will see that Smolensk is a very long distance 
from France. What business had the French 
away up there? They were on a picnic excur- 
sion to pillage Russia, under the lead of a fa- 
mous continental robber. Napoleon Bonaparte. 
This ubiquitous Bonaparte v/as not a Moham- 
medan; he was a first-class Christian statesman, 
a very wise man. That is what his biographers 
say. This is what a majority of persons think. 

Napoleon Bonaparte had four brothers, three 
brothers-in-law, and a step-son. They v/ere 
eight superfluous pegs for which he was trying 
to find holes. The places he was in search for 
were places occupied by kings. He found some 
such, but generally kings liked their business, 
and they objected to surrendering their places. 
One objection was enough. Bonaparte was a 
fighter. He would fight a weak nation for a 
place, and a rich one for tribute. More recently 



lOO 



he had a nephew who thought he was a fighter 
too. He said that Prussia needed a whipping. 
He was going to march a mihion men straight 
into Berhn. He started to see WiUiam. Some- 
thing changed his course. He went to Se-dan. 
Had he continued only a few miles further, he 
would have been on his uncle's battle-field of 
Waterloo. Singular coincidence. Perhaps he 
did not like the association. Perhaps he was 
afraid of Wehington's ghost. However, he lost 
his country and he lost a crown. France lost 
Alsace and Lorraine, a great many valuable 
lives, and a vast amount of money. 

But the uncle, the great Napoleon, was no 
such fool. He never lost, that is, scarcely ever. 
He knew everything. He knew just the season 
of the year to start for Russia. He timed it so 
as to enjoy a Russian sleigh ride. Sometimes it 
snows in Russia. He actually marched 500,000 
men to Moscow. It was this little party that 
burned Smolensk. It was good fun. Bona- 
parte must amuse his soldiers. To be sure, they 
saw thousands of women and children fleeing 
into barren fields — they had killed the men in a 
glorious fight on the previous day — and what 



did they care for helpless v/omen and children ? 
They were on their way to Moscow. They 
went to Moscow, But somehow, after arriving 
there, they didn't like Moscow, or the Muscov- 
ites didn't like them. It snovred in Moscow. 
It also rained — fire. If it was too hot for a few 
days, it was decidedly chilly after that time. 
But they had no sleigh rides, and they were get- 
ting hungry. They wanted to go home. They 
started in that direction. They appeared to be 
in very much of a hurry. The first thing they 
did was to drop their heavy blankets and tents. 
The wise Napoleon thought it would not hurt 
brave soldiers to sleep on the snow. Snow was 
soft. He had a carriage to sleep in. They 
tried sleeping on the snow. It was not com- 
fortable, but there was nowhere else to sleep. 
They had burned all the houses on their way 
out. The next thing they did v/as to eat their 
horses, and the next was, trying to eat each 
other. It was tough eating, for the poor fellows 
were lean from suftering and hunger, and the 
survivors had hearts in their bosoms which beat 
with cannon sound when forced to such an al- 
ternative. But the dead were free from suffer- 



102 



ing. The suffering of the hving had but just 
commenced. Some of them again straggled 
through Smolensk. This time they begged of 
those poor women for bread. There was no 
bread. Once more they lay down in the snow, 
perchance to dream of home and the dear ones 
there, but really to freeze to the ground never 
more to rise. It is estimated that not 100,000 
— some historians say not 80,000 — of that great 
army of 500,000 conscript crusaders ever saw 
their homes again. Glorious Bonaparte! 



J 



XI. 



Out of Russia — Contrast—The Partition — Before 
and After — Removal of Universities — Extinc- 
tion of the Polish Language — Warsaw — 
Promised Land of the Jews — The Two Sects — 
Orthodox and Fanatical Jews — A Manuscript 
Bible— The Talmud. 

IF a traveler does not feel the car jolt when he 
crosses the boundary between Russia and 
Poland, there are not wantmg other evidences to 
convince him that he is again in a country where 
once at least was partial freedom. Standing at 
the car window, I saw a white house, a weather- 
vane, a well-sweep — in Russia they pull water 
out of wells in a bucket with a rope — and I also 
saw a garden of flowers, and other evidences of 
culture and the exercise of individual will. I re- 
marked to my companions : "We must now be 



I04 



in Poland." And we were in Poland. Soon we 
saw two horses drawing a plow, then modem 
cultivators drilling in seed wheat, and soon, 
a steam-propelled threshing machine. We also 
saw well-clad farmers and finely attired women 
at the stations, plenty of flowers, and sweet, 
cheerful faces. Yes, that was Poland — not Rus- 
sia. 

I once became deeply interested in the story 
of " Margery Daw." As curiosity became in- 
tensified and the story was being concluded, the 
author informed his readers that there was no 
Margery Daw. We, in America, have read much 
about Poland ; we have heard a great deal con- 
cerning Poland; we have been made sad over the 
tribulations of Thaddeus of Warsaw; we have 
discussed Polish heroism; we have even erected 
monuments to the memory of Polish patriots 
who fought for us against our British lords, and 
we have a deep, sympathetic interest in many 
things concerning Poland. But alas! there is no 
Poland. Where is she? Ask Prussia, ask Aus- 
tria, ask Russia. 



Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time, 
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime. 



:o5 



Where is Kosciusko; where Pulaski; where 
Sobieski? In their graves, of course; but they 
either died in exile or their graves are in foreign 
countries, while the land for v>'hich they plead 
and shed their blood is ruled, not by the voices 
of their countrymen, but by the force of leagued 
oppressors. Where are the ancient universities 
of Poland; universities which reared a Coperni- 
cus to break the bonds of superstition and teach 
man the true relation of his planet to the solar 
system? Suppressed — removed — to enrich Po- 
land's spoliators. Where is Warsaw's great Zalu- 
skin Library, with its 300,000 precious volumes ? 
In St. Petersburg. Where are the museums, 
relics, and archives of Stettin, Cracov/, and 
Posen? In Berlin; in Vienna. What cf a 
language older than the English, and which, 
had Poland rem.ained intact, would now be 
spoken by 30,000,000 people? Outlawed; sup- 
pressed. It is not permitted to be spoken v/ithin 
the walls of Russianized seminaries; it cannot 
be used in legal proceedings or in Government 
documents, and the children of Polish parents 
must read — if they read at all — out of Rus- 
sian text-books. Only one in nineteen of the 



io6 



children of proper age in Poland is an attendant 
upon school. In Norway, Denmark, and Swe- 
den 93 out of every loo are in school. Less 
than one-third of the people of the fonner Polish 
Kingdom now speak their mother-tongue, and 
after another generation has passed away, no 
witnesses will exist to prove that such a language 
ever existed. Soon it will be as dead as the 
Sanskrit; as extinct as Chimborazo. This is the 
avowed intention of the Russian authorities. 
The Poles are excluded from Government posi- 
tions of every kind, and upon railroads, in cor- 
porations and manufactories, but one in four of 
the employees is permitted to be taken from Po- 
lish families. 

Prussia may apologize, Austria may prevari- 
cate, and Russia disdain an answer, but the world 
has long since placed the stamp of its unquali- 
fied condemnation upon the partition of Poland. 
Each of these nations abetted the others in per- 
petrating the great crime, because each was to 
share in the spoil. It was not the weight of 
shot in the invaders' caissons that strangled Polish 
freedom; it was factional discords and the weight 
of foreign gold tickling traitors' palms that wrought 



107 



the death of Poland. It was traitors who placed 
Polish citadels in vandal hands, and sold their 
nation's honor. Disunited at home, a prostrate, 
supplicating people, became a prey to surround- 
ing vultures and miscreant mercenaries. Heroic 
defenders were put to the sword or saved their 
lives by exile; cities were sacked and the homes 
of their defenders burned, while above the wild 
carnage of a plundering foe rose the tumultuous 
murmurs of vengeance, consternation, and de- 
spair. 

Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, 
And Freedom shrieked, as Kosciusko fell. 

The hope of freedom has never been quenched 
in the Polish heart; but for 114 years the Poles 
have lived on hope alone. Since 1772 their 
struggle has been frequently revived, but at each 
uprising the knife was plunged deeper into their 
vitals, until in 1864 the jugular vein — their lan- 
guage — was reached. Since then Poland has 
been dead beyond resurrection. 

Politically, Warsaw is the extinct capital of 
Poland. It is still a seat of commercial wealth, 
of ecclesiastical bishoprics of the Greek, Catho- 



:o8 



lie, and Jewish Churches, and of what is left of 
the Universities of Poland. Warsaw is a city 
larger than Boston. It contains over 500,000 
inhabitants. Located on the Vistula, 140 miles 
from the Baltic, intersected by railroads and in 
the heart of a rich agricultural country, her situa- 
tion is one of commanding importance. A large 
portion of the city is as finely built as any in 
Europe. She has a complete system of tram- 
ways; several miles of corrugated iron pave- 
ments; fine zoological and botanical gardens, 
good theatres, several Protestant and about two 
hundred Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic 
churches, and a large number of Jewish syna- 
gogues. Her parks cover more than five square 
miles. One of them, in the form of a boulevard, is 
about 1,000 feet wide, extending from the heart of 
the city quite to its outer line — a very practical 
appropriation of open space. If Brooklyn's boule- 
vard to the ocean were four times its present 
width and bordered by handsome residences of 
wealthy citizens, it would represent what Warsaw 
is now possessed of Another park, through 
which runs a small stream, contains the gov- 
ernor's palace. Near it is an open-air, Roman- 

■y£PT 






109 



esqiie, musical theatre. The auditorium is ar- 
ranged with rising seats, from which the audi- 
ence look across the water upon a little island 
twenty feet distant, where is located the orches- 
tra among simulated ruins of the Forum. Boats 
ply back and forth, swans swim in the stream, 
flowers border the walks, and orange trees on 
wheels do duty in splendid style. At night, 
when lighted by electricity, the place is one of 
poetic beauty, and one of which the people of 
Warsaw are particularly proud. The city stands 
on a plateau about sixty feet above and on a 
bend of the river, which winds around one-third 
of its circumference. The principal bridge there, 
crossing the broad Vistula, with nearly a mile of 
graceful arches and tall stone piers, is a substan- 
tial structure to ride over, and a beautiful picture 
to look upon. 

At Warsaw I met Jacob, Moses, and Levi, 
with many uncles, cousins, and aunts, and rather 
a large family of descendants. They appeared 
to be as much at home as if I had encountered 
them tending their flocks in Judea or trading ouf~ 
short weight silver dollars for corn in Egypt. 
Our Jewish friends are great travelers. I have 



no 



been in no place, however remote, in which I 
have not seen their genial faces. Until I visited 
Poland I did not know where their headquarters 
were. I had always supposed that they were a 
race without a nation, but there I found enough 
of them to make two nations of respectable size. 
There are 100,000 and more Jews in Warsaw 
alone. Perhaps Poland is their promised land, 
and already they are taking possession. 

Many of the Polish Jews are educated, enter- 
prising, and liberal, and they are among the best 
citizens of the country. But there are two kinds 
of Jews. Like the Christians, they are divided 
into sects — the Orthodox and the Fanatical Jews. 
The Orthodox Jews are cosmopolitan. They in- 
termingle freely with other men, dress as do their 
Christian neighbors, engage in various pursuits, 
and are distinguished for their charity. Their 
synagogues are built in a sensible manner, and 
are unostentatious and commodious edifices. 
They are always open to the public, and free 
from superstitious emblems or mysterious cere- 
monies. In one of them I was shown a large 
Bible, wholly in manuscript — the writing of one 
scribe. These manuscript Bibles — still prevalent 



throughout the East — show plainly how, from 
error or design, the Christian Fathers, who spent 
several hundred years in trying to make an ac- 
ceptable New Testament, were involved in such 
a maze of trouble. They did not undertake it 
soon enough. The witnesses were all dead be- 
fore the Gospels were commenced. Originally 
there were forty-four gospels, involving many 
contradictions. They were cut down to four. 
Then there were ninety different versions of 
Christ's teachings. More perplexity. No origin- 
al complete manuscript of the New Testament 
written prior to the sixth century is now known 
to exist. So we do not know how many 
changes there were. We know, however, that 
there were a great many, and that yet they are 
not so exactly in accord as to be read alike by 
all men. It is only a few years since a new ver- 
sion was made, and already we are talking about 
revising the revision. To straighten matters out, 
there were forty-five councils of the church dur- 
ing the fourth century alone, and a good many 
after that time. Sometimes one council would 
throw out what a previous council had canon- 
ized and said ought to go in. We are still in 



the dark. Out of this darkness England is to- 
day supporting 182 difterent religious sects. Each 
one says it is right. There are some who say 
that none of them is right. 

The Fanatical Jews are clannish; they confine 
themselves to trade, reject the Septuagint Bible, 
and proceed wholly under the teachings of the 
Talmud. They are a queer people in more ways 
than one. The Talmud of the Hebrews; the 
Vedas of the Brahmins; the Zend Avesta of 
Zoroaster; the Koran of the Mohammedans, and 
the Bible of the Christians, all teach charity and 
cleanliness; but the Fanatical Jews seem not to 
have found any version inculcating the latter vir- 
tue. They live in small apartments over their 
shops. Their shops are located in narrow, filthy 
streets. The men all wear the typical frock- 
dress dangling below their knees ; have long hair 
and beards reaching to their waists, and walk 
with canes as high as their arm-pits. The young 
women are handsome — Hebrew women are al- 
ways handsome — they have long black hair, but, 
I -regret to say, they are not over-fastidious in 
dress. Generally they seem to be uneducated 
and are not engaged in industries. But when 



113 



these innocent maidens marry, their hves change. 
Then they tend shop and are compelled to have 
their beautiful hair cut close to their heads — a, 
barba-(e)-rous proceeding. In place of their nat- 
ural hair they must wear a wig. Our ladies, 
fond of waterfalls and switches, probably obtain 
their supplies from this source. I asked why 
the women wore those abominable wigs. Relig- 
ion — the Talmud ! — was the reply. Yes, anything 
may become religion. Whirling Dervishes and 
shaking Quakers whirl and shake in the name of 
religion; but I mistrust that those pretty Jew- 
esses part with their hair for the same reason 
that Jacob raised ring-streaked, speckled, and 
spotted calves when he worked for Laban — 
shekels, money. These shops! They do not 
contain ring-streaked and speckled kine, but 
they do contain not only ring-streaked and 
speckled wares, but a Mosaic of wares and dirt 
wonderful and mysterious in variety. Alcohol 
and andirons; brimstone and butter; charcoal 
and carpets; dish-cloths and darning-needles; 
ebony and eggs; furniture and fiddles; gridirons 
and ginghams; pots and pastries; ivory and in- 
cense; knives and kettles; looking-glasses and 



114 



laces; molasses and matches; onions and odors; 
in fact, almost every portable thing one can eas- 
ily think of, excepting tooth-brushes and fine 
tooth-combs, may be found in the shops of the 
Fanatical Jews in Warsaw. 



I l^J 



X J^j r\. 



XII. 

Warsaw. 



"Why I Went to Warsaw — The Homes of Pulaski 
and Kosciusko — Nikolas Kopernik — A Flat 
Earth — Results of One Man's Life — Galileo, 
Columbus and Magellan — What I Thought 
Standing by the Tomb of Kopernik. 

I WAS glad to be in Warsaw. My interest in 
that city was not one of mere sentiment aris- 
ing out of a knowledge of its sad history. It was 
from other and distinct reasons. The time was 
when America had oppressors and when she 
needed friends. Her friends were found in 
Poland and they did not wait to be asked to fly 
to our country's rescue. At Warsaw the patriot 
Casimir Pulaski was under sentence of death. 
He escaped from prison, fled to America and 
entered Washington's army. When gallantly 



ii6 



leading a regiment in the defence of Savannah, 
he was struck by an EngUsh bullet, and with ex- 
piring breath, said : " Let not Liberty perish." In 
Warsaw I saw the stately mansion where once 
lived Thaddeus Kosciusko, the friend of America, 
the friend of Washington, the friend of Poland and 
the friend of man. It was pleasant to be upon 
the ground and procure local tradition concerning 
the achievements of those noble men. It was, 
however, even more than my interest in the 
memory of those revered names that induced me 
to visit Warsaw. 

Warsaw was the home of one greater than 
Kosciusko, greater than Europe, greater than 
America and greater than the whole world. 
There were planted by that man the seeds of 
a liberty as broad as the earth and affecting all 
mankind then living and thereafter to live. He 
was the principal actor in the most important 
drama — tragedy, rather — recorded on the pages 
of history. It was too awful to be real. But it 
was real. It had continued for more than one 
thousand years. The world was the stage ; the 
stars in the firmament were the scenery ; the in- 
fernal regions the dressing-room; the Christian 



117 



Church the prompter ; mstruments of torture the 
working machinery; milHons of helpless men the 
foils and fanatical men the executioners. It was 
to see the majestic tree arising from those seeds, 
now standing in one of the little parks of Warsaw 
— Thorwaldsen's statue of Copernicus — that I 
wished to visit that city and look upon the objects 
which once the eyes of that immortal man had 
beheld. Reverentially uncovering and humbly 
bowing in that sacred presence, the tears of grati- 
tude which then dimmed my eyes but partially be- 
spoke the emotions I felt. There are times when 
cumulative emotions overwhehn the power of 
speech and enforce silence. I was silent. I 
thought. What did I think ? 

The effort which has been so long made to sup- 
press popular knowledge respecting the great 
Copernican conflict and the disgraceful part 
played by the Christian Church in opposing 
scientific investigation, have been such that I feel 
it a duty, when opportunity offers, to add my mite 
in the direction of revealing the facts. My know- 
ledge unhappily is not much, but such as I have, 
I freely give unto you. 

I thought — that had not Nikolas Kopernik 



i8 



lived, I should not have had existence. Singular 
thought, say you. Aye, it is more than thought. 
It is fact. Had Copernicus not established the 
rotundity of the earth, Columbus would not have 
discovered America ; my parents would not have 
met; I should never have been, and could not be 
made happy by the sweet children whose lives 
are now a source of perennial joy to me. It is 
only 343 years since Copernicus died. It is also 
just 343 years since his treatise on the revolution 
of the planetary system was published. It is, how- 
ever, 379 years since in secresy it was written. 
Why those thirty-six years of concealment ? Ah ! 
there is the history, there the torture, there the 
victory and there the shame. 

The idea of the rotundity of the earth was not 
new. In the tomb of Rameses, who died about 
the time Moses was born — 1500 b. c. — has been 
found a massive golden circle divided into 360 
degrees. In the British Museum there may be 
seen Egyptian entablatures of 1722 b. c, on 
which are engraved the signs of the Zodiac. The 
Babylonians had calculated the diameter of the 
earth and fixed the Sidereal year within two 
minutes. The Aztecs of Mexico, when destroyed 



119 

by the Spaniards, had also calculated the size of 
the earth within a fraction of a mile. They had 
the length of the year within two seconds, which 
was several seconds nearer exactness than was 
known by any Christian nation. The Alexandrian 
Library contained globes, astrolabes, and spheres 
I and charts of the earth. At the beginning of the 
I Christian era every scientific man understood 
I that the earth was round. But this important 
knowledge was Pagan, and it did not suit the 
purposes of the new dominant sect. It was 
crushed out, suppressed, outlawed. The Christian 
Bible was constructed upon the geocentric theory 
of a flat earth. The earth was the center of the 
universe. The sun v/as made to give this earth 
only, light by day, and the stars to direct its course 
only, by night. Christ was given existence and 
died only for the benefit of men in Asia, Africa 
and Europe. That was the limit. Joshua could 
make the sun stand still for a whole day. The 
sun occasionally needed rest. This earth alone 
was interested in the matter. The planets a.nd 
the stars did not receive their light from the sun. 
They were placed in the heavens for our earth's 
entertainment. They were traveling on their 



own account. This is what the Bible teaches. " ^ 
It was all the makers of it knew about the world. 
There were some men even then who kne\v some- 
thing more than this. They were silenced by 
such arguments as the rack, the stretcher and the 
faggot bring. 

Copernicus knew the fate of the astronomical 
writings of Thales, Pythagorus, Aristarchus, Aris- 
totle, Ptolemy and Strabo. He was not ignorant 
of the parts played by Constantine, Eusebius, 
Theodosius and Diocletian, in their endeavors to 
extinguish scientific Hterature. He knew who 
destroyed the great Serapion Library at Alex- 
andria; why Hypatia was torn in pieces; why 
Proterius, St. Boniface, Arnould, D'Arcole and 
other skeptical inquirers were burned and their 
ashes scattered to the winds ; why Gerbert was 
poisoned, and why Roger Bacon was imprisoned 
— each of them a martyr to the cause for which he 
was Hving. He knew what dungeons and tortures 
were for, and the convincing power of such argu- 
ments upon those who stayed to try them. Hap- 
pily Copernicus also knew the value to mankind 
of his life until he could scatter in friendly hands 
the result of his discoveries, so that all copies of 
his treatise might not be destroyed. 



121 



For thirty-six years there was not in all Europe 
a printer who dared issue a declaration that the 
earth and other planets revolved around the sun. 
The author of such an avowal and the publisher 
of it were blasphemers and heretics. Finally, at 
Nuremburg, in Bavaria, was found a printer v/ho, 
under the apologetic strategy of presenting both 
sides of an absurd hypothesis, undertook the risk. 
Then was put in type the great heretical treatise 
— unquestionably the most important book ever 
written by man. Broken by age, driven out of 
Rome and hunted through Europe, Copernicus 
sought his own home to die. The proof-sheets 
of his treatise were secretly conveyed to him^. He 
read them on his death-bed. The philosopher's 
v/ork was done. The first copy of his book vras 
placed in his hand. He kissed it, he blessed it, 
he bathed it with his tears, and with trembling 
voice said : " Go, httle messenger, go." Then he 
sank upon his pillow, his own spirit going— Vv^e 
know not whither — the church said to hell. 

Beaten, baffled, foiled. The truth was out at 
last. Europe was ablaze. 

Earth shook, red meteors flashed along the sky, 
And conscious nature shuddered at the cry. 



St' 



122 



Councils were called. Messengers were dis- 
patched and orders issued to intercept and destroy 
the books of Copernicus under the penalty of the 
rack here and eternal damnation hereafter to any 
person who dared conceal one of them. It was 
too late. The books were already in India ; they 
had been reprinted in Sweden and in England. 

It was not the Catholics alone who were op- 
posing the Copemican theory. On that question 
the Protestants and Catholics were once more 
united. Each sect drew its inspiration from a 
Bible that, although believed to be inspired, was 
written by men who knew only the partial 
boundaries of a flat earth. 

They did not know anything about a Western 
Hemisphere. They had never heard of Aus- 
tralia. The Bible says : — " The sun riseth in 
the east, it goeth down in the west." That was 
enough. True, this doctrine had been disputed 
by Pagans in China, in India, in Assyria, in 
Egypt and in Greece, who had never heard of 
a Christian Bible. But the Christians had pretty 
nearly rid themselves of the influence of those 
Pagan skeptics. They would have no more de- 
niiil by Copernicus or by anyone else. They 



123 



lived upon a flat earth which was the center of 
God's universe. Their prayers could control the 
movement of the sun. Joshua had tried it. The 
wise men from the east had been guided to the 
Infant Saviour's manger by dancing stars. It 
was a glorious thing to control the sun and the 
stars. They could not do these things if the 
Copernican theory should be established. The 
Pope anthematized, cardinals protested and 
bishops appea-led to the Inquisition. Martin 
Luther said : " Copernicus was an astrologer, a 
fool, who was trying to reverse God's laws ; " 
that " Aristotle, Copernicus and school teachers 
were locusts, beasts." Melanchthon said : ''The 
earth is the center of the universe. It is a want 
of honesty to deny it." John Calvin and his 
Church Council at Geneva went further; they 
publicly burned the books of Serve cus upon the 
subject and they burned poor Servetus in the 
same bonfire. Those men, however, were but 
the instruments of authorities v/ho at an early 
date laid down laws for their successors to fol- 
low. Pope was not the real author of the para- 
doxical falsehood that " Ignorance is bliss." St. 
Polycarp of the second century, one of the most 



124 



revered of the Christian Fathers, was the formu- 
lator of fehat Hbel. St. Polycarp said : " That 
the most monstrous demons, hostile to God, were 
inventions and astronomy. " After that and 
similar utterances by the Christian Fathers, 
naturally, the astronomical instruments at Alex- 
andria were to go, and, of course, Copernicus 
was not to be permitted to revive them. 

A round earth ! Preposterous ! Christ had 
not said anything about a round earth. He had 
not even informed them that there was another 
hemisphere peopled by millions of sinful men 
with souls like their own, needing salvation. 
The Bible only spoke of a flat earth. Any other 
theory would upset them completely. They 
did not propose to be upset. They did, how- 
ever, propose to make a finish of what was 
left of the teachings of those awful skeptics, 
Plato, Aristarchus and Aristotle, and of Coper- 
nicus at the same time. A desperate point was 
reached. The art of printing had been intro- 
duced into Europe from Pagan China. Another 
invention of the devil. Of this art the great 
Cardinal Wolsey said : " If we do not destroy 
this invention it will destrov us." Ihev tried to 



125 

destro}^ a knowledge of the printing press. They 
did not succeed. The books of Copejmicus were 
already well distributed. They were increasing 
the army of heretics. The planets were in mo- 
tion. They had been seen in motion through 
some dreadful instruments called telescopes, just 
then discovered by two persons at widely differ- 
ent points— Tycho Brahe, in Holland, and 
Galileo, in Italy. More misfortune. The de- 
fenders of a flat earth fought the harder. 

Other planets ! The idea was absurd. How 
■ could the inhabitants of those planets have de- 
scended from Adam ? Such teachings should 
not be tolerated. They would dig up the bones 
of Copernicus, chop them in pieces and burn 
them to ashes as a warning to the advocates of 
his theory. But they didn't. Copernicus knew 
that they would be after his bones and he had 
provided that no inscription should reveal his 
place of burial. Other planets ! It was against 
the scriptures. How could the dwellers upon 
far off worlds have entered Noah's ark ? 

Once more they commenced a search for those 
dynamite books. The search was a failure. The 
books seemed to have wings. They flew from 



126 



place to place and they were hidden. Other 
planets! Admitting the fact would degrade 
Christ's mission. How could he extend his sal- 
vation to sinful mortals on other planets ? The 
fight must be continued. It was continued. A 
round earth ! Awful. How could the people 
on the under side see God at the Day of Judg- 
ment when he came through the clouds to re- 
ward good men like themselves and punish such 
monster heretics as Copernicus and Galileo ? 

Bitterness became wormwood, prisons were 
full; engines of torture were multiplied and scaf- 
folds were swept away by streams of human 
blood. Things were discouraging. Through 
those telescopes the changing phases of the 
planet Venus could be seen — they were seen, 
thus absolutely proving her rotundity and move- 
ment. Galileo and Brahe thought that such 
evidence would end the war. Not a bit of it. 
The telescope was prying into God's affairs. It 
was placed under the same ban as Copernicus's 
books and Bruno's writings. The inventors of 
the telescopes were put in prisons. Galileo saved 
his hfe by taking an oath that he was sorry. 
Brahe was persecuted, and, happily for him, died 



127 

before the frenzied emissaries reached his place 
of abode. But they burned Bruno at a stake 
and sported with his ashes as a warning to other 
heretics. Victory was yet with the oppressors. 
Still the good seed was sprouting in various 
places. Toscanelli prepared some charts of a 
round earth. With those charts, Columbus 
started for the east by saihng v/est. He saw the 
pillars of Hercules sink below the eastern horizon. 
He saw new constellations in the heavens. He 
encountered islands. He returned. He gave to 
Europe a new continent. He thought that this 
new proof of a round earth would put out the 
fires of persecution. He was mistaken. In- 
stead of thanks he received anathemas. Col- 
umbus died in chains. 

Then Magellan took up the work. For three 
long years his little fleet followed the setting sun 
through unknown seas, under unknown stars, until 
again, hke phantom apparitions, its weather — 
worn pinions reappeared in the harbor of Seville, 
from whence it had set forth upon the most 
momentous voyage ever undertaken by man. 
Magellan was dead, but his fleet had circum- 
navigated the globe. The hehocentric theory 



128 



was true. The earth was not the center of the 
universe. There were other worlds. The sun 
did not shine for this earth alone. It did not 
stand still for Joshua, Copernicus was right. 
The earth was round. 

The Church has never said that it was sorry 
for the mistake it had made, for the misery it 
had entailed and for the Hves it had sacrificed ; 
but recently it has been silent on the flat earth 
question. 

This silence permitted a fitting inscription to 
be placed upon the tomb of Copernicus. It has 
also permitted the repeopling of the continent 
discovered through his cosmic knowledge, by a 
race who have built observatories and cata- 
logued the stars, until we have not only a pretty 
fair knovdedge of our own planetary system, 
but also some knowledge of a hundred million 
other similar systems. When Copernicus de- 
parted from the world's great stage, he left the 
curtain rolled up. The light which comes from 
science had begun to illuminate the horizon. 
The freedom which comes from knowledge was 
opening the lips of the hitherto silent. Its 
sweet influences were beginning to soften the 



129 

hard path of suffering man, to relax the severe 
grip of civil tyrants and the superstitious bond- 
age of ecclesiastical thraldom. The Dark Ages 
of a thousand years' duration were ended. I 
was near the mouldering remains of the mortal 
man who projected upon the world these wonder- 
ful results, multiplied by what has since followed, 
rendering the achievements of the last three cen- 
turies far greater than those of all previous 
time. Copernicus placed us under an indebted- 
ness to his memory that can be discharged, so far 
as we are concerned, only by teaching our chil- 
dren the condition of man when he came upon 
the earth and his condition now, that they may 
know to whom the credit is due. This was what 
I thought when I stood before the statue of the 
heretic Nikolas Kopernik. Yes, I was glad to 
be in Warsaw. 




POSTOFFICEOEPT. 
LIBRARY. 



XIII. 

Germany, 



A Family of Kings — Kaiser William and the 
Crown Prince — Queen Victoria and John Brown 
— Dresden — Bonds and Beer — Barbarous Amer- 
ican Pavements — Bavarian Geese— Nuremberg 
— How to Convert Sinners — Ecclesiastical Rel- 
ics — The Lady of Mercy. 

UNEASY lies the head that wears a crown. 
King WilHam of Prussia is an old man; 
but aside from age he looks weary and tired. 
Kings have to appear in public to appease the 
people; they wear mail to ward off bullets; they 
take their food from tasters for fear of poison, 
and without any specified duties their lives are 
continuous burdens. The King business in Eu- 
rope is not what it used to be. As a class, they 
have proved incompetent; as a whole, they are 
known to be expensive luxuries. It so happened 



131 



that when I was in Berlin — I am now homeward 
bound, and write in the past tense — the King 
of Portugal was visiting the royal family there. 
Of course there was a public reception and a 
military parade. King William, the crown prince, 
and his oldest son, making three generations of 
actual and prospective kings of Prussia, and the 
King of Portugal, headed the procession. At 
Copenhagen the king and queen of Denmark 
passed in an open carriage where I happened to 
be standing. On another occasion, in a similar 
manner, I encountered the king and queen of 
Saxony. I have seen Queen Victoria at Wind- 
sor Castle, and the Prince of Wales at Bucking- 
ham Palace, and I once met Victor Emanuel, 
King of Italy, in Florence. I also saw Dom Pe- 
dro, Emperor of Brazil, when he was in New 
York. These persons are educated, and natur- 
ally have cultivated manners, but I do not re- 
member any utterance or remark made by any 
of these royal personages, excepting Dom Pedro, 
that has been considered worth recording. They 
think, however, that their ideas are as important 
as their stations. Sensible people do not think 
so. Kings have little by little been shorn of 



132 



their power. They possess no legislative func- 
tions; they cannot veto a bill of their parliaments, 
and it is a matter of indifference to the govern- 
ment ministers whether they communicate with 
them or remain silent. Their business is to dress, 
permit courtiers, ambitious young ladies, and 
other advertising agents, to kiss their hands, 
and keep the modistes and shop-keepers in 
customers. 

When Prince Albert died. Queen Victoria un- 
dertook to make the people believe that a queen's 
grief at the loss of a husband was very different 
from the grief of other women who mourn under 
a similar affliction. For years she kept herself 
in seclusion; forgot all about parHament, had 
her horses and servants attired in deepest mourn- 
ing, and her royal yacht was painted black and 
draped with crape. Recently she had another 
affliction; her valet, John Brown, died. She 
wrote a book principally to tell how badly she 
felt without Brown. Again, she supposed that 
her subjects would be deeply moved by her grief 
for Brown. A high conception of duty for a 
queen, surely! Her book is the laughing stock 
of the world. But this is the way it goes. A 



^33 

president of the United States may not be its 
wisest statesman, but he is certain not to be a 
fool, and when he becomes president he has 
power to make appointments and veto bills, and 
he has to work. Money and lands may be in- 
herited, but brains cannot be inherited. The 
idea of making the oldest son of a certain man 
the head of a nation, whether he knows anything 
or not, is not in harmony with the spirit of our 
age. 

Dresden is a fine city with a wealthy pop- 
ulation, whose principal business appears to 
be to manufacture beautiful porcelain and 
cultivate flowers, keep clean streets with 
smooth pavements, accumulate pictures, con- 
duct seminaries of learning, cut coupons 
from off national bonds, and drink beer. 
Their beer is said to be exceptionally good, but 
the recent World's Exhibition at Paris gave its 
premium for the best beer to Anhseuser, of St. 
Louis, America. The Germans do not drink 
much spirituous liquor. Beer may not be nec- 
essary for man's well-being; neither are tea and 
coffee, but so long as men will have some kind 
of a bibulous habit, it is doubtless a practical 



134 

temperance argument to encourage the substitu- 
tion of good beer and wine for bad whiskey. 
Speaking of street pavements, I am safe m say- 
ing that there is not in all Europe a single city 
with such abominably rough, unsightly, and filthy 
streets as those of New York. Enough money 
is annually lost in broken carriages and drays, 
and from laming and killing horses on our best 
thoroughfare — Broadway alone — to pay the cost 
of a proper pavement five times over. Our pave- 
ments are noisy, back-breaking, horse-killing bar- 
barities. 

Porcelain, the manufacture of which has en- 
riched and made Dresden famous, was one of 
the lost arts of the ancient Egyptians. Its re- 
discovery was the result of one of those singular 
accidents which sometimes follow illogical causes. 
It came from superstition, blood and wheat flour, 
or rather fi-om the doctrine of transubstantiation. 
To sell wafers containing the body of Christ, had 
brought unmeasured streams of gold to the 
heads of the church. They were fond of gold 
and they adopted any custom which would 
produce gold. The sale of indulgences to sin, 
and the sale of holy wafers, were their most 



135 

prolific source of wealth. Transubstantiation of 
Christ's body into bread was but the corollary of 
transmutation of base metals into shining gold. 
This was the philosopher's stone — the elixir of 
life. Transubstantiation received a new baptism. 
To oppose it, meant persecution, confiscation of 
goods, or death, or all of them. From the eleventh 
to the fifteenth centuries, Europe furnished many 
martyrs to the cause of unbelief. William Sautree, 
about 1450, was the first martyr in England. 
Then followed a heretic tailor, John Badbee, 
who said that : " If transubstantiation were true, 
there were 20,000 gods in every corn-field in 
England." Badbee was burned, but the fire of 
the fagots surrounding him v/as seen from the 
clifis of Dover to the Grampian hills, and the 
groans of the lookers-on were heard throughout 
Europe. 

Still transubstantiation flourished and the effort 
at transmutation amounted to a craze. Although 
chemists, for scientific researches were inter- 
dicted, alchemists were besought to produce gold 
with promises of substantial rewards here and of 
eternal life hereafter. About 1705, one Johann 
Bottger, a chemist of Berlin, fled to Dresden, 



136 

thinking that among strangers he might follow 
his pursuit unnoticed. He was mistaken. His 
fame preceded him. The fumes from his cruci- 
bles could not be concealed. It was believed 
that Bottger had discovered the philosopher's 
stone. The Elector, Francis I. of Saxony, had 
Bottger placed in a prison in the royal castle 
where he was to be furnished with all the neces- 
sary apparatus and material, from which he should 
reveal to him the long sought elixir vitce. 
Bottger disclaimed the supernatural knowledge 
attributed to him. But there was no option ; he 
must try to produce gold or remain a prisoner. 
He preferred freedom and he kept himself busy in 
his laboratory. One day he sent his valet for 
some powder with which to adorn his \\ig. 
Observing that the powder was of peculiar 
gravity, he analyzed and experimented with it. 
From that hair powder he reproduced porcelain. 
Although not a transmutation of other metals 
into gold, it was a transmutation of unproductive 
superstitious idolatry into a beneiicient power, 
which has done more for the enrichment of 
Dresden and of the world than all the dogmas 
ever promulgated by the edicts of deluded 
churchmen. 



137 

I am fond of soft things, particularly soft 
pillows. Pillows are usually made of feathers. 
Feathers — the most of them in use — grow on 
geese, and the geese are raised in Bavaria. 
Goose-farming is one of the principal industries 
of Central Bavaria. This is the more singular 
as the land is dry and poorly v.'atered, and geese 
like water. " I should think that to raise geese 
successfully you need to be near water," I re- 
marked to a Bavarian farmer at a railroad sta- 
tion. " Yah," he replied, " zem goose, he fools 
round in dot waser till he forgit dot his biznes is 
to set on zome egg, and give us more leetle goos- 
lings." There is everything in knowing one's 
business. 

Nuremburg in Bavaria is more of a Dutch 
city than any city in Holland. She has houses 
— many of them — of four stories to the eaves and 
five stories in the slanting roofs above the eaves, 
giving nine and sometimes ten stories to the 
gable ends. She is a quaint, sleepy old city v/ith 
a hundred thousand inhabitants, a history, a 
museum of ecclesiastical relics, a flourishing uni- 
versity and many manufacturing establishments, 
and is the residence of a woman — a lady of wide. 



138 

but very bad reputation. Of this lady I must 
say a word after a proper introduction to her. 

Nuremburg is now a Protestant city. Once 
it was a CathoUc city. Martin Luther went 
there. The two sects quarrelled. The pro- 
testers won. At Nuremburg was printed the first 
copy of Copernicus's great work on the revolu- 
lution of the heavenly planets, which revo- 
lutionized the world. Near to the old shop 
where that book was printed, there is quite a hill 
covered with important buildings. Around two 
sides of the hill winds a little river. We ascend 
the eminence to get a view of the city and the 
surrounding country. The view is one of rare 
beauty. On our way to the hill we cross a 
bridge over a deep moat. Then we pass through 
the gate and under the portcullis of a high and 
strong stone wall which surrounds the citadel. 
On our left is an old prison with thick walls but 
v/ithout windows. Some vv^ould call it a dungeon. 
Its walls are planted beneath the surface waters 
of the river. A Httle higher up, there is a church 
with rich stained windows, a baptismal fountain, 
an image of the crucified Saviour, pictures of the 
Holy Mother and the Apostles, incense and 



139 

prayer-books. Still further up and around the 
hill, there is a museum of medieval ecclesiastical 
relics : swords, helmets, cross-bows, battle axes 
and bibles. Again higher, into a council build- 
ing on the very pinnacle of the hill. We ascend 
stairs. We come to the top. The room is dark, 
excepting as light is let in by small slides in the 
roof worked by pulleys. In that remote, guarded 
and nearly dark tower is kept the lady of whom 
I have spoken. This lady has a sister residing 
in a similar interesting retlreat at Edinburgh. 
The reputation of each of them is quite the same 
— ^bad. The Edinburgh sister is called the 
Scavenger's Daughter. The one in Nuremburg 
has a more enticing name. She is known as the 
Lady of Mercy. She is not young. She has 
been there for more than two hundred years. 
But she looks fresh and seems to Hke the place, 
although her companions are not very cheerful 
looking, when the light is let in upon them. I 
am sorry that I cannot let a calcium light upon 
them that could be seen around the v/orld. 

Instruments of Christian torture ! How con- 
tradictory the words sound. That Christ who 
said " If thy enemy smite thee on one cheek, 



140 



turn to him the other also," should have folio v/ers 
who would torture and kill men — not for being 
charitable and forgiving — ^but because they did 
not believe in infant sin and eternal damnation ! 
Well, these instruments of torture are there — 
within those walls, in that dreary prison, on that 
hill in Nuremburg — the rack — the pillory — the 
screw — the levers and the pulleys that slowly 
wrenched bones from their sockets, and the 
furnace where were heated the irons that burned 
out innocent men's eyes. Death by such means 
was slow — it was not pleasant. The Lady of 
Mercy did better. She was formed out of thick 
plank, on the outside chiseled and formed after 
the fashion of a full robed woman, with a crown 
upon her head, one hand across her breast and 
her supplicating eyes turned towards heaven, all 
painted in rich ecclesiastical colors. Through the 
walls of the image, from all directions are driven 
numerous long, sharp spikes. The image opens 
at the side in halves. The front half swings back 
upon its hinges, presenting two concave apertures 
large enough to contain a human figure. On 
the floor there is a trap door. The victim was 
placed upon the trap, his back, head, legs and 
arms resting against those sharp spikes. The 



141 



movable half of the image also containing simi- 
lar spikes — they never forgot the spikes — was 
slammed together. The spikes entered the brain, 
the eyes, the legs, the arms, the heart. They 
met in the center of the victim's body. It was a 
quick death, compared with that produced by 
many of the torturing devices for converting 
heretics, to be seen in that cheerful place. It 
was a merciful death, because quick. The door 
of the image was swung back. A spring to the 
trap was touched. The body was loosened and 
it fell, down — down — down, one hundred feet — 
through a dark dismal shaft, intersected by 
horizontally revolving knives which chopped it in 
pieces, that fell into the waters beneath and then 
floated away with the dead cats and offal of 
a Christian city, while the executioners sang 
hymns of exultation and prayed to their God to 
bless their hellish and fiendish barbarity ! 

Men of that saintly, frenzied brood, 

Blind to charity — deaf to reason ; 
Who think through unbeliever's blood 

Lies their directest path to heaven ; 
Men who will pause and kneel unshod 

In the warm blood their hands have poured. 
To mutter o'er some prayer to God 

Engraven on a reeking sword. 



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